


Early Cases (1872-1874)

by Cerdic519



Series: The Diaries Of Sherlock Holmes [1]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: England (Country), F/M, Family, Friendship, Justice, London, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Philanthropy, Slow Burn, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28673607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: 1872BRIEF ENCOUNTER – their first (sort of) meetingTHE LESTRADE INHERITANCE – enter the cake-loving detective1873URANIA'S MIRROR – a reflective caseUNCLE EDWY'S DEVISE – some unusual large inheritancesPLANE AND SIMPLE – skulduggery on the tracksGULLING MR, PEARL – Sherlock helps a friend of a friend1874THE GIRL NEXT DOOR – the detective loses somethingCARELESS WHISPERS – the infamous Goldfish Incident
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
Series: The Diaries Of Sherlock Holmes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2112249
Comments: 16
Kudos: 13





	1. Brief Encounter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fanwitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanwitch/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May 1872. In distant Northumberland a drunk Mr. Henry Watson dies in a ditch, leaving a widow Mary and two sons, John and Stephen. It is the dead man's nephew Mr. James Swordland who has to administer his estate, which means that James's wife Moira has to do it because... well, because she is Moira. She decides to bring her youngest brother Sherlock along for the ride, so he will meet John Watson for the first time – or will he?

My name is Sherlock Alfred Holmes, the thirteenth, last but (of course) best child of my inimitable mother Lady Aelfrida Holmes and her husband Sir Edward. I was born on September the third, 1854 in the town of Mallow, County Cork, Ireland. Two months short of my eighteenth birthday when my adventures began, I was uncommonly tall at a neat six foot, so some seven inches above what was then the norm for gentlemen. I had black hair which I always kept long and did _try_ to keep tidy, despite what people said. My best facial feature was my eyes which were (and still are, amazingly) electric blue; my face was what would in a later generation be described as 'cosmetically-challenged' (my brother Hilton had once said 'ugly', which had been when he had discovered our mother's hearing was sharp and her aim was even sharper!), and I was perhaps not the most well-kempt of people when it came to my appearance, although I was sure that my brother Carl exaggerated when he said I looked like I had been caught in a tornado, twice. 

Well, he exaggerated a bit, but that was the drawback of being the youngest in that most of my siblings were bigger than me. Plus of course Mother doting on me as 'her Sherry-werry', and trying to somehow squeeze me even taller every time that she saw me.

While I was growing up I knew that I would gravitate towards a career that involved using my brain, as I always felt that I had to not squander the exceptional talent that the Good Lord had given me. I did consider the Police Service but, a few of them apart, most are hopelessly unimaginative. By this time in my life I had been fortunate (or so I had thought at the time) to secure a place on a six-year Humanities course at Bargate College in Oxford, which I fully expected to complete in at most four years. At seventeen I was therefore very much the atypical teenage boy, far ahead of my contemporaries and set for a well-ordered life. 

Until one of my far too many siblings decided that I needed a change.....

MDCCCLXXII

I would finalize and check these notes in 1936, a very different world from sixty-four years before when my adventures began. Because I had several siblings in government and several of my cases would arise from topical events, I always made a point of keeping up with what was going on in the world, so before launching into what happened to me in England's most northerly county I am going to describe what the world was like back in 1872 and what had been happening of late then.

The prime minister was Mr. William Gladstone, a Liberal politician known to his friends as the 'Grand Old Man' (and to his political enemies as 'God's Only Mistake'!). He was then just over half-way through what would be the first of four separate terms of office, surely a feat that will never be matched. He certainly did not get on well with Queen Victoria who reportedly once remarked of him, 'he speaks to me as if I were a public meeting!'.

The monarchy was in a strange place in 1872. The Queen's consort Prince Albert had died in 1861 and she had withdrawn completely from public life, to the displeasure of her subjects. Matters were complicated still further by her friendship with a Scottish ghillie John Brown who managed to begin to coax her out of her self-imposed retirement, but two years back republican sentiment had seemed to be on the rise with both the Queen's son and heir Prince Edward involved in a societal scandal and the defeat of Emperor Napoleon The Third which led to the declaration of the Third French Republic. However the winter of the previous year (i.e. 1871) had seen the Prince of Wales narrowly survive a serious illness and support for the Crown had been bolstered.

Constitutionally the country was shuffling slowly and, it has to be said, unwillingly, along the path of electoral reform. Following the Great Reform Act of 1832 a second act five years back (1867) had made the constituencies fairer although by no means uniform, and extended the vote to more working-class people; ironically it had been introduced by Mr. Gladstone's Conservative rival Mr. Benjamin Disraeli thinking that he would benefit from it, only to be proven wrong at the 1868 general election.

The nearby Continent was still recovering from a turbulent sixties when Germany and Italy had both united, then the former had trounced France in a short war at the start of this decade after which it had wrested control of Alsace and Lorraine from it. This had caused a realignment in British politics which had traditionally been anti-French, and it was unclear just what the final order of things would be once they had settled down. They were certainly not settled in Spain where they were just starting another revolution over what sort of government to have. Further east, Austria-Hungary had just reconstituted itself in an attempt to keep its squabbling peoples under Hapsburg rule, Russia was still seeking to undo its recent defeat in the Crimean War, and the Ottoman Empire was doing its best to earn itself the moniker of 'the sick man of Europe'. 

The British Empire was still expanding, slowly in Africa as the Continental Powers had thus far taken little interest in the Dark Continent except for strategically important areas such as the Cape of Good Hope and the Red Sea-Suez Canal areas. In North America the Dominion of Canada had just been established but Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland were still separate colonies. The United States under President Ulysses S. Grant was still recovering from its recent and terrible Civil War and comprised thirty-seven states and eleven territories; these latter would by 1936 have formed eleven states with the Dakota Territory being split north and south, and Alaska being joined as a territory by Hawaii. Over in Asia the Raj was nearing completion although Baluchistan and Assam on the far western and eastern fronts still remained to be secured, the former particularly important in blocking Russian moves towards the Indian Ocean. And Australia was still five separate colonies (Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia, plus the province of Southern Australia (then incorporating the Northern Territory).

MDCCCLXXII

The circumstances that were transporting me some three hundred miles to the bucolic eastern reaches of England's northernmost county were strange, and looking back at them later I did wonder at the unlikely set of events that had led to my journey. A key factor was my elder sister Moira, a terrifying lady some eight years my senior who had married a nondescript fellow called Mr. James Swordland. His family had hailed from this remote county but he himself lived in London where he had set up a small information agency which my sister had very swiftly transformed into the leading one in the capital. The opinion around the family house was that Moira took her husband out and dusted him down from time to time 'for appearances' sake', although like our mother she was a large and muscular lady so said opinion was never voiced in her Presence. Because also like Mother, she had a temper which was best avoided by those who preferred to keep their limbs in their current arrangement!

I will introduce the rest of my family in detail as and when I have to, since no reader should be subjected to that much horror in one dose. In the meantime however I had better explain my tangential relationship to Watson's family, which was responsible for our coming north. 

Mr. James Swordland had had a father of the same name who had died four years before the events that I am about to transcribe. He had married a Miss Margaret Watson whose brother Henry had died drunk in a ditch which had therefore necessitated my being here when I should have been planning for my Humanities course. The departed Mr. Henry Watson had initially left the sorting of his estate to his brother Edward and sister Margaret; however she had died two years back and he had passed at the start of the year, and the now late Mr. Henry Watson had not thought to make alternative arrangements. There was another brother, Jonathan, but he was away in the United States, and also the late Edward's sole son, another Edward, who was a doctor in the Army and somewhere overseas presumably doing doctor things, so responsibility for sorting out the estate had devolved to the dead man's only other nephew. Or more accurately said nephew's wife, my sister.

MDCCCLXXII

I suppose that I should have asked Moira why she wanted me to go with her but firstly I was afraid of her, and secondly she shared with our terrifying mother the unfortunate tendency to answer questions when asked them. Very directly. In graphic detail. I had still not recovered from my stupid immediate elder brother Guilford asking Mother about her choice of names for us all; myself apart we were it turned out all named for properties that Father had acquired prior to selling off and in which he and she..... ugh! Worst of all I was told this at breakfast when there had still been bacon to be had! It was frankly amazing that I had turned out such a well-balanced, modest and supremely affable fellow.

Guilford was, it turned out, not the only family member to be unwise over their choice of questions at times. I did wonder when I met Moira at King's Cross as to why she had not brought her husband along, and she smiled knowingly.

“He did wish to come when he was first told”, she said, “but I 'talked' him out of it. He was hardly in a fit state to manage the stairs by this morning, let alone a long journey on the iron road!”

I was still trying to shake off a really terrible mental image when our train set off! There was sharing and then there was oversharing!

“I am doing this quiz in the newspaper”, she said, smiling in a way that was just annoying. How would you describe yourself in just five words?”

“I have done that one before”, I said. “Brilliant, Efficient, Just, Modest and Plain-Speaking.”

She coughed several times for some reason. The carriage must have been dusty.

“What do you like the most?” she asked, smiling in a way that was damnably suspicious. “I would wager that certain breakfast foods may feature in your answer?”

“Certainly coffee and bacon”, I agreed. “And barley-sugar; they really should make more flavours of it. I like bees because they are efficient like me; I hope to have a hive one day or at least once I have learned enough to manage them properly. My violin of course, and my pistol-shooting.”

“Not certain family members?” she asked with a smile.

“That is why I practise my pistol-shooting!” I said crisply. 

“What else?” she asked.

“Just a few”, I admitted. “Mornings; I do not do well first thing unless I have a specific need to rise early.”

“We both remember when you nearly throttled Hilton for taking your beloved coffee that morning!” she smirked.

“I regret was that it was not nearly enough!” I said. “But there is always next time. I cannot be having with irrelevancies; things I do not need to know just take up valuable space in my great brain.”

“Presumably not the space where all that modesty should be!” muttered someone who most unfairly was still bigger than me.

“I cannot be having with bigotry of any sort”, I said, “as it is both illogical and inefficient. Bright lights; also illogical and inefficient. Unnecessary running around; I cannot understand the modern fashion that the Metropolitan Police Service has acquired for going places rather than just sitting down and thinking of the right solution. Lilac-water, as I am strongly allergic. My so called social betters when they think that they have the right to talk down to me and others that they regard as beneath them. Certain ladies, married or not, who look at me in a rather alarming manner as if they are thinking.... you know.”

“No”, she said innocently. “What?”

I glared at her. _She knew damn well what!_

“And top of the list, Mother's stories”, I said firmly. “If they ever do put a man on the Moon it will be most likely because he was trying extra hard to escape her writings!”

She smiled at that.

MDCCCLXXII

We were past Hitchin and I had had two(ish) bacon sandwiches from the buffet. Rather disappointing bacon; the Great Northern Railway really needed to do better.

“You said that Father has some other connection to this family apart from your James”, I said. “What is it?”

She hesitated before answering.

“Do you know about what happened after Anna's birth?” she asked.

Annabella (no-one who valued their life used her full name) was my immediate elder sister, and a surprisingly normal lady given the rest of our family. She was also one of the best fighters among us as several of my stupider brothers had found out the hard way. Luckily we did live just around the corner from a hospital.

“I do not”, I said.

“Father had some sort of mental collapse”, she said. “Two major deals had fallen through in quick succession and he was nearly ruined. He was saved by two gentlemen friends who stood by him, both of whom were major landowners; his friend Sheridan, Lord Hawke who has his estate down in Wiltshire, and the late Mr. Mark Campbell whose daughter Mary is the widow of the late Mr. Henry Watson.”

_(I could have had no idea then just how important one of those supportive gentlemen would be to me in future. And already had been, for that matter)._

“It was touch and go”, she went on, “and Father had to spend a few months in a sanatorium recovering from what they called a brain-fever. Luckily by the time you came along all was well again.”

I was still young and developing my soon to be formidable talents, otherwise I might have spotted her slight omission there.

“So Father feels that he owes the Watson family a debt”, I said, seeing at once onto what potentially dangerous ground we were venturing. Philanthropy was a major part of Victorian society but few people liked being the recipients of charity, much as they did appreciate and need the actual money. “Has he made any plans?”

“The late Mr. Henry Watson left two sons, John and Stephen”, she said. “I do not think that it was a successful marriage, by all accounts. Mary Campbell was one of four children of Mr. Mark Campbell and he left her a fair sum of money, but it was in the form of a trust fund for his daughter of which she could only access the interest, except in case of an emergency. Very wise, given the way that things turned out.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Unfortunately she is not a well lady”, she said, “and already needs medical care which, as we know, is expensive these days. Of the sons John is I think nearly twenty and wants to become a doctor while Stephen is about sixteen and wishes to train as a lawyer, both of which are also expensive.”

“So Father will help out?” I asked.

“If we can get them to accept help”, she said. “That was why I asked for you. It will teach you something about human nature for once!”

I would have scowled at her, but she was still bigger than me!

MDCCCLXXII

The Watson family lived in a small cottage next to a run of rather mean railway-terraces near the railway-station at Belford; ironically I would return here many years into the future to assist another of the then-residents of said terraces. My sister however took me into the village which lay about a mile away. I thought that the place showed signs of decline although Moira (being Moira) knew why that was.

“This used to be a stagecoach place”, she said, “hence the ridiculously large inns and wide main road. The railways destroyed the old network and places like this suffered as a result.”

At least the tavern was comfortable and they served bacon. I decided that Belford was a tolerable enough place.

MDCCCLXXII

The following day were met by one Mr. Alan Hodge-Jones, who was the lawyer responsible for administering the late Mr. Mark Campbell's estate. I know that his profession has a poor reputation but frankly he did little to improve on it. He was about forty-five years of age and, I thought, far too pleased with himself. 

His first piece of news was also more than a little frustrating.

“I am afraid that Mr. John Watson was diagnosed last week with the chickenpox”, he said ruefully. “Fortunately his mother has had it but his brother has not; he has had to remove himself to the local tavern where they have most generously agreed to put him up for the duration.”

It would take many years in what would be my glorious and illustrious career before I attained a full understanding of _homo sapiens_ , but I distrusted this fellow instinctively. I knew from my sister's expression that she was less than impressed with him too.

“At least I can see him as I have had it”, she said firmly (I thought that if this fellow had tried to stop her, then at least the nearest hospital would have benefited from the extra business). “We are here to help sort out financial matters for him and his family.”

“Ah”, the lawyer said, his face taking on a pained expression. “I have some bad news for them about that, I am afraid. It concerns the late Mr. Mark Campbell's bequest to his daughter.”

Moira narrowed her eyes at the fellow. I felt that the prospects for imminent violence were improving. Good.

“Go on”, she said coolly.

“It is I am afraid a tad delicate”, he said looking pointedly at me, “and perhaps not something to be discussed in front of.....”

“I said, go on.”

Moira did not raise her voice, but somehow she was able to make the fellow before us tremble. 

“I am afraid that shortly before his death, my late client discovered that his daughter had, ahem, entertained a relationship with her brother-in-law Mr. Jonathan Watson”, the lawyer said, visibly sweating under Moira's gaze. “That was why she chose the name for her eldest son; she told him that it was from her brother who had died young but I am afraid that that was a lie. My client was shocked but decided that his daughter should still inherit at least the interest while she was alive. However she was to be forever barred from accessing the capital – I was appointed the chief-executor and he made that very clear to me – which given her current state of health is.... problematical.”

I presumed that he meant the unseen Mrs. Watson might have thought that she could settle her medical bills because of that 'emergency clause', but would not now be able to. Moira thought for a moment then smiled at the lawyer.

“That seems to be in order”, she said. “I shall go and see this Mr. John Watson and shall help him sort matters.”

MDCCCLXXII

“I am surprised that you did not make more of a fuss about what he said”, I said to my sister once the lawyer had gone. 

“I thought it better to wait until I have proof of his lies”, she said simply.

I stared at her in surprise.

“He was lying?” I asked.

“A good liar too”, she said. “But not good enough.”

“How did you know?” I asked.

She looked at me and sighed.

“And you want to become a consulting-detective?” she said reprovingly. “Man is not built to tell lies. There are at least seven major indications that someone is lying when they speak to you. This rogue was good and had clearly trained himself to avoid some of them, but I spotted at least two while he was talking to us.”

“What were they?” I asked.

(She told me them all, but I shall not mention them here as she described them as trade secrets, and also, she was as I said a lot bigger than me).

“I shall wire to my people in London and find him out”, she said. “With this trans-Atlantic telegraph we may even be able to contact the faraway Mr. Jonathan Watson and see what he has to say on the matter. It will not take long; a few weeks at most I think. Then we shall be able to remedy matters.”

“Will that not be very expensive?” I wondered.

She tutted at me.

“Swordland's get more than enough horrible and unpleasant clients who I can and do charge the earth for their not having been acquainted with the word 'please' any time in their wretched lives”, she said. “Cases like this I take on because it is doing _right_. That is what we are put on Earth for.”

I would remember that philosophy in my own brilliant career.

MDCCCLXXII

In fact it took a little under two weeks for everything to come together, and my sister was indeed able to contact the distant Mr. Jonathan Watson. She also sent down to London for the services of someone she would not tell me about, but she had a quietly satisfied look about her that boded well.

Finally we went round to the offices of Mr. Hodge-Jones. I noted (because I am observant fellow) that while he was displaying a framed picture of a Union Jack, he had very carelessly hung the thing upside-down. I thought that rather slack for someone in his profession, but as such an act was said to betoken someone in distress it would prove to be surprisingly prescient. He had after all made the mistake of trying to lie to my big sister!

“My father wishes to put Mr. John and Master Stephen Watson into university to help them reach their desired careers”, Moira said briskly. “Naturally he understands that that will be difficult particularly for Mr. John as he would not want to leave Northumberland with his mother in her current state of health, but fortunately Saint Bartholomew's Hospital in London is modern enough to provide what is called distance-learning, so provided that he reads the right books and sends in his essays, they will accept him.”

“That is most generous of your father”, the lawyer smiled.

Moira nodded. There was an awkward pause.

“However, there is the matter of the altered dates.”

I had no idea what she meant by that, but the lawyer suddenly went pale.

“I do not understand”, he said.

“When Mr. Mark Campbell was told about his daughter's _alleged_ affair with her brother-in-law”, she said, “the person telling him supplied evidence that Mr. Jonathan Watson had left on his first trip to the United States back in May of 'Fifty-One. That tallied rather neatly with young Mr. John Watson's birth in January of the following year. However I have contacted Mr. Jonathan and he said that he had gone to the New World in January of that year, which barring an elephantine pregnancy would make him somewhat unlikely to have been the boy's father. He was also prepared to post me a registered copy of his passport if necessary, as that has the actual dates of his arrival in the country.”

The lawyer stared at her in stony silence. He was visibly sweating now,

“The great thing – in fact one of the very few good things – about your profession, sir, is that you have to keep records if only to keep track of which lies have been told to whom”, she said. “A lawyer's offices may be fairly secure, but not against a good thief who can find all sorts of interesting things.”

She waved a piece of paper at him.

“This, sir, is the letter that proves you lied to your client about.....”

He suddenly leaped forward and, to my surprise, snatched the letter from my sister's hand before screwing it up and throwing it onto the fire. Then he glared at us both in triumph – before he saw my sister's triumphant smile.

“Oh dear, I seem to have gotten it mixed up”, she said flatly. “That was my shopping-list for my trip to Newcastle on our way home. The letter is still in my bag.”

She reached into her reticule and extracted.... a pistol. I thought for one moment that the rascally lawyer was about to pass out; he certainly backed away right up to the window which was slightly open. Maybe if he just tripped and fell at the right angle.....

“Madam?” the villain gasped.

“Sherlock, you will find two constables in the waiting-room”, she said coolly. “I had a feeling that they might be needed.”

And that was why I never made the mistake of crossing my sister!

MDCCCLXXII

I was able to meet the younger Watson son, Stephen, who as I said was staying at a local inn. He was one of those tall but insubstantial teenagers, who seemed to spend most of his time playing with his hair, which is fine at six months of age and possibly even defensible at six years, but really not at sixteen! Still, he seemed friendly enough.

“He can start at Edinburgh University in two years' time”, Moira told me, “and in the meantime he can do some preliminary studies and help out with his mother. The local doctor thinks that there is little hope but we shall see. If she does linger then St. Bartholomew's has said that they will arrange for the elder brother to do exams and observation work at a place down in Newcastle.”

We were back at the station, waiting for the slow train that would take us to Newcastle. As I said, my sister planned to do some shopping there so we were leaving early and would catch the sleeper service back to London tonight.

We were in our compartment and I had just heard the guard's whistle when I noticed someone rushing onto the station platform. We were still barely moving so I stood up and looked out of the window.

“He just missed it”, I observed.

“He just missed _us”,_ my sister corrected. “I forgot to tell you; that is Mr. John Watson whose future we have just helped secure. He thanked me already and said that he would see us off now he is over the chickenpox, but I know that his mother was ill again this morning so I had not actually expected him to make it.

I stared curiously at the slowly-receding fellow who had been part of the cause for my journey to this area. He was of average height so slightly shorter than me, had short-cut sandy hair and.... and.....

“What is it, Sherlock?”

We were out of the station by this time and headed south, the figure a fading speck in the distance. I slowly sat back down.

“I do not know”, I said, frowning. “He just seemed..... familiar from somewhere. Yet I know that I have never seen him before.”

Unfortunately my musings were interrupted by some tiresome sibling humming a romantic ballad for some reason. And worse, she was still bigger than me. Damnation!

MDCCCLXXII


	2. The LeStrade Inheritance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> July 1872. Before he heads off to university at Oxford, Sherlock finds himself helping out his sister Moira with her information business. Hence it is he who receives an unusual caller with a case that will bring several important people into the young detective's life, and which will also show him the darker side of Mankind.

It was still over a month before I was due to head off to Bargate and my Humanities course, and I had hoped to spend it sitting at home and quietly reading. I was instead working at my sister Moira's information office for two reasons; firstly she had told me that I was, and secondly, the alternative was infinitely worse. For once I owed my immediate elder sibling Guilford a vote of thanks; he was home for the summer holidays after the first year of his cookery course and had made clear that he did not wish to help our sister – which declaration he most certainly regretted as our fearsome mother had pounced and said that with all that free time he could help her with her crimes against lit..... her story-writing.

My mother's stories. Imagine the sort of book or magazine which, several days after you have out it down, you are still trembling. Even a single blink brings pictures to your mind that no amount of coffee can save you from. Then at least triple that. My mother turned out horror after horror which we her offspring all sought desperately to avoid. Her latest nightmare was 'Blow The Man Down', something in which an overly strict sea-captain became trapped in his ship's rigging and his sailors all came and..... ugh! Double ugh! I was so much safer in here away from such horrors.

To add to my cup of woes Moira had gone and told Mother about my reaction to seeing Mr. John Watson at the railway-station. Thankfully she had not yet turned it in to another story (although there was still time; we all knew that she kept her own Little Blue Book in which she jotted down ideas as and when they came to her and which, like some horrible monster from the deep, might well emerge when one least expected it). Mother had however got Moira to make some inquiries and she had discovered that one of Watson's acquaintances from Northumberland, a fellow called Mr. James Stamford, was starting at Bargate at the same time I was. So Mother got Father to arrange for us to be room-mates 'because there was always the chance that your _special_ friend might visit'. 

As I have said before, it was frankly amazing that I had turned out as such a modest, well-balanced and supremely intelligent fellow!

MDCCCLXXII

Moira had asked for my help in her work because all three of her children – three-year-old Doris and the twins a year younger, Donald and Douglas – had all come down with an illness that summer and it had been decided that some time in the sun would do them good. They and their father were dispatched to Devonshire while my sister commuted back and forth along the Great Western in order to maintain the business, and I 'sat in' for her. It is lucky that I was (and still am) such a modest fellow or such a thing may well have gone to my head.

It was a hot day late in the month when one Mr. Bohun Selkirk called at Swordland's. He was an elderly gentleman of about fifty-five years of age, grey-haired and stooping slightly. Moira had taught me a few things besides how to be the most annoying elder sister on the planet, so I saw that he had come in from the Metropolis (he had a Metropolitan Railway ticket in his hand) and from his well-kempt appearance and respectful manner that he was likely in service. He was also clearly well-bred, not commenting of the relative youth of the fellow who received him.

“I work for Mr. Hubert Jeveson, the government minister who has a house up in Hendon”, my visitor said. “He is a bit strict but not a bad fellow; he supplies information to this company from time to time and asked me to bring the latest lot here in person.”

I reasoned from that that this information had to have been sensitive in some way, otherwise it could more easily have been posted. Also that this fellow's employer was likely very lazy; he could easily have dropped it off himself on his way to the House of Commons unless he wanted to save himself the obviously egregious cost of a postage-stamp.

“I did wonder at his asking me to do it”, Mr. Selkirk said, inadvertently helping to prove one of my surmises. “But I have had a family problem of late and Mrs. Jeveson, she knew that I was uneasy so suggested me for the job. That was good of her.”

“What is your problem?” I asked.

“It concerns my late brother Blaine, who died recently”, he said. “He had married a lady called Miss Brangen LeStrade; I know that sounds foreign but they are as English as any of us. He was always a secretive cove; they lived down in Selhurst in Surrey, and although we exchanged Christmas cards he did not encourage any contact. I would not have known of his passing had I not read of it in the 'Times'.”

I might note for the modern (1936) audience that the Selhurst of the 1870s was rather different from that of today, as indeed was much of the southern part of the metropolis. The advent of the railways had caused a great expansion of the capital northwards but the Surrey and Kent areas immediately to the south remained relatively undeveloped until some years after this story is set. Strange as it might seem to the modern reader, the area north of Selhurst was at this time being marketed as a set of spa areas for those who wished to escape the grime of the Big City.

“Blaine was one of two gentlemen responsible for administering the LeStrade family estate”, my visitor went on. “There was his wife and two brothers who inherited when Mr. Uther LeStrade died. I do not know the details but I understand that they are or at least were a rich family; all I know of them is that one of his nephews is now a policeman. As I said, my brother kept himself very much to himself. But.....”

He came to a halt.

“Something has happened to cause you unease”, I hazarded. “What, exactly?”

“I went down to my brother's house to see about his two sons, my nephews Balin and Balan”, he said. “To my surprise the place had already been sold and there was no sign of them. No-one knew where they had gone.”

I thought for a moment.

“You said that your brother was partly responsible for administering this estate”, I said at last. “Who else was involved?”

A look of distaste crossed his features.

“My sister's elder brother Mordred”, he said. “The other brother was Arthur; I think that he had several children including that policeman I mentioned but I am fairly sure that Mordred was not married. The only time that Blaine ever spoke of him, he said that he lived down to his name!”

“A whole lot of Arthurian names”, I observed.

“I think that that has something to do with the estate”, my visitor offered. “My sister was named after a character from that time and I think that the policeman I mentioned earlier has a name of one of the knights, but I cannot remember which one except that it begins with a 'G'.”

I knew little of Arthurian legend as it was frankly irrelevant, but I was beginning to wonder if it might play some sort of role in this matter. Moira had said that it was the duty of people like us to help out those less fortunate than ourselves and who needed our help. She had been right although I would never tell her that as she would have become (even more) insufferably smug, and I detest smug people.

“My sister is due back in London tomorrow”, I said, “and I will ask her to make inquiries into this matter for you, sir.”

He smiled, clearly relieved.

“Thank you, sir.”

MDCCCLXXII

“Gawain LeStrade”, Moira said when I told her about our visitor. “Nearly thirty although with that polished dome of his he looks older, as well as not someone you would wish to meet in a dark alley. Or a well-lit one for that matter! Decent fellow though; I only hope he does get the promotion that he is up for.”

“You think that he will not?” I asked.

“He is the sort of fellow who calls a spade a spade”, she said, “and will throw in some free Anglo-Saxon adjectives to let you know just what he thinks of said spade! That sort of honesty does not go down so well in the modern Metropolitan Police Service. Then there is his ongoing feud with Gregson.”

“Who is that?” I asked.

“Tobias Gregson, one of eleven sons – eleven _legitimate_ sons – of that pompous oaf William, Baron Gregson. A fellow so up himself he is coming out the other side! Thankfully young Toby is an apple that fell a long way from a bad tree, but he is the polar opposite to LeStrade and they clash all the time. Although as there are two vacancies at sergeant level just now, perhaps the gods of the Metropolitan Police Service are watching over them and they might just avoid the nightmare of one being promoted without the other! Otherwise I might well have a murder or two to investigate!”

She was so catty at times! I had no idea why we got on as well as we did, but I supposed that that was due to my own good nature.

“LeStrade's family goes back to Uther LeStrade around the start of the century”, she said. “He was very fond of his Arthurian name so he insisted that his estate be divided equally between the members of each generation until it had died out – except that if anyone changed their name to a non-Arthurian one, they would get disinherited. I remember reading of Arthur LeStrade's death back in 'Sixty-One and that they thought it 'suspicious'; they said at the time that he had only one sister and one brother so if this Brangen is gone then Sir Mordred will have the whole estate to himself.”

 _”Sir_ Mordred?” I asked.

“He got a baronetcy for giving money to some politico or other”, she said. “He has no family of his own – which gives me hope for the women of London! – so I suppose he did not want a full knighthood as he had no-one to pass it on to.”

(Because this sort of thing would arise in more than one of my later investigations, I had better explain here what my sister meant by that. At this time there were baronies and baronetcies, both of which were knighthoods but of a different ilk. A baron was the second step up the noble ladder after a lord and, importantly, the title could be inherited although in some instances only by male-line descendants. A baronetcy was merely a knightly title often, as in this case, granted by the government of the day in return for political favours (cash). Only in very rare circumstances could it be passed on. Our father Sir Edward was a baronet, my brother Guilford had once remarked that it was more likely our mother who would have been charging into battle in full armour, but luckily for him he was out of hospital in little more than a week).

“I like Gawain LeStrade”, my sister went on, “if only because we need policemen like him and Gregson. And I would not trust his uncle with tuppence to go shopping! Unfortunately I promised to go back to Jamie once I had checked up on things here.”

I looked at her sharply. I knew as I have said before that among her many failings was a tendency to overshare when describing just what she and her husband got up to, which someone of my tender years really did not need to know about. Ever!

“I think that you might go round and see young Craig for me over this”, she said. “Mr. Trent; his father owns a business that supplies servants around the capital. He is only twenty-one but he is all but running the place now after his father had that stroke. He is very competent, and he will be able to tell you which of the late Mr. Blaine Selkirk's servants would be the best ones to approach.”

“His servants?” I asked, surprised.

“Servants know everything, despite what their so-called betters think”, she said. “The hard part is getting them to say what they know to an outsider because of their fears of retribution. But Craig would know which ones will talk to the likes of us. Even to you, perhaps!”

I scowled at her for that.

MDCCCLXXII

Mr. Craig Trent was a nondescript fellow who was indeed barely any older than myself, thin and with what looked like a pudding-basin hair-cut. He nodded when I told him what I wanted and rang for someone to fetch him the appropriate records, yet I had the distinct sense that my request had unsettled him in some way. 

“The Selkirks kept surprisingly few servants for a house their size”, he said at last. “Especially after Mrs. Selkirk passed; her widower seems to have let the place run down. A pity, as it is a most excellent property and close to a railway-station so doubtless will fetch an excellent price once it has been 'done up' as they say in the vernacular. Yes, here it is. Mrs. Anne Smith was their cook for the last five years.”

I have to admit that that surprised me. Not this lady being a cook, but that Mr. Trent had alighted on her as the lady to approach. I knew that cooks tended to be very much mistresses of their own domain and to have little direct involvement with those upstairs. Still I thanked Mr. Trent for his time and left for the address that he had supplied me.

MDCCCLXXII

The Selkirks' former cook had found further employment with one Mrs. Weston, an anaemic-looking lady who looked at me first suspiciously and then rather curiously; I could only presume that she had something in her eye from the way that she kept winking at me. Thankfully the fact that I was the scion of Lady Aelfrida Holmes secured me admission to the kitchens and I was able to meet my quarry.

Mrs. Anne Smith was a lady in her early forties, and very much the atypical Victorian cook except that she too seemed to have something amiss with her eyes in the way she looked at me. I also definitely noted a tension when I mentioned the reason for my visit; she went to the door and requested that we not be disturbed before resuming her seat.

“I do hope that I can trust you as a gentleman, sir”, she said warily.

“Of course”, I said.

She took a deep breath. I began to feel uneasy; what on earth had been happening in the Selkirk house?

“Mr. and Mrs. Selkirk, they had twins”, she said. “Balin and Balan; John the butler told us that there was some sort of family thing that only those with names from legend could ever inherit anything. They had not long turned eighteen when their father passed.”

“Where are they now?” I asked.

For some reason that question made her turn bright red.

“You see, sir” she said awkwardly, “about six years ago they reached puberty. And they developed...... Feelings!”

I stared at her expectantly. There had to be more.

Oh there was.

“For each other!”

Ah. In the list of things deemed Totally Unacceptable in the Standard Victorian Family, that surely made at least the top ten. And quite probably the top three!

“Their parents knew of course”, she went on, “but they did nothing. That barn of a place was big enough for them both to have their own bedrooms but of course they didn't want that. It was weird especially after their mother died three years back; their father didn't like it but he did nothing, perhaps out of respect for his late wife.”

I thought about this, and an unpleasant realization came to my mind.

“Their uncle and the executor of the family estate”, I said heavily. “The uncle, Mr. Mordred LeStrade. He knew.”

She blushed but nodded.

“I _think_ the master told him”, she said, her voice quiet now. “I know he felt that he himself had to hold back, as I said perhaps for his wife's memory, but when he knew he himself was going I think he may have..... said something.”

I thought about this for a few moments.

“I think that I see a way forward”, I said at last. “Thank you for seeing me today, madam, and I promise that I will keep you informed of any developments in this matter.”

“I would appreciate that, sir”, she smiled.

MDCCCLXXII

A telegram to Moira confirmed two things. Firstly, the LeStrade policeman was based at a station not far from both our family home and her office. Second, some siblings really could learn what was and what was not appropriate to put in a telegram. The poor fellow who had been forced to transmit that sort of thing; he was likely still shaking. I know that I was!

MDCCCLXXII

Gawain LeStrade was exactly as Moira had described him, a beefy, bald fellow of about thirty years of age who initially looked at me with suspicion when I approached him in the Pig & Whistle. However, once I had described the case and what I suspected to have happened, he was eager to co-operate. Especially as it was his own family.

“Though I may be putting my own neck in a halter”, he said ruefully as we headed towards a large house in north London.

“Why?” I asked.

“Sir Mordred has friends in high places”, he said glumly. “Worse, they're saying that toff Gregson will get one of the jobs on offer so it's me up against five for the other one. With this my chances just went from little to nil!”

I made a mental note to do something about that, but for now there was the matter of securing justice for the as yet unseen Balin and Balan Selkirk. Who, if I had it right, were not that far away.

We received a cool reception at the big house – I was sure that had Sir Mordred himself been there even policemen would have been denied entrance, which was why I had timed our visit to when I knew that he was elsewhere – but after some effort we gained admittance. While LeStrade and his colleagues began to look around the place I pulled aside several of the servants. A few coins in the right pockets and I knew what I needed to know, and I was able to direct my new friend to a second-floor room which was locked. On the understanding that we would break the door down if a key was not found within two minutes, a key was found within two minutes, and we gained admittance.

I would come to know Gawain LeStrade for many years, but in all that time I do not think that I had ever seen him look so shocked as he did when we entered that room. I was similarly appalled but then I had been expecting the sight that awaited us. Two slender young men of about eighteen years or perhaps younger, both so emaciated that we could see their bones sticking out through their thin clothing. I passed my hip-flask to LeStrade and he accepted it gratefully before emptying it in three gulps.

MDCCCLXXII

Sir Mordred LeStrade was of course finished in London, and he fled abroad in an attempt to evade justice only for the French to capture him and send him back. He served many years in a hopefully cold, dank cell and emerged a broken man, disappearing I knew nor cared not where. He had in his short time in sole charge severely depleted the family estate but at least some of the moneys were recovered, and it was arranged that Balin and Balan Selkirk along with their eight cousins (the sons and daughters of the late Mr. Arthur LeStrade, including my new policeman friend) would each receive one-tenth of the estate as an inheritance. It was not much, but given how relatively poor many of them were, it represented a substantial improvement in most of their situations.

I had spoken to Moira before the raid about Balin and Balan Selkirk, and she had recommended a sanatorium out in Essex which specialized in restoring to full health people in the sort of condition that the twins were in. They seemed unable to believe their turn of fortune and, when I dropped them off at the sanatorium and left them my card, they both hugged me in thanks. It was like being squeezed between two bags of bones but I hoped that they would make a full recovery, which they eventually did. Also I would have cause to use this place later in one of my darker cases, and for rather more than just two gentlemen.

I also spoke to Father who had a Word with certain people and ensured that LeStrade got full credit for uncovering the shameful behaviour of a knight of the realm. I did not doubt that the Metropolitan Police Service was far from happy with such an 'achievement', but it was conveyed to them that if my new friend failed to secure a promotion after this, people might well Talk. Much worse, Mother might feel compelled to call on the Chief-Commissioner and start asking questions! And she might even bring some of her stories along!

Yes, I know that the first of the Geneva Conventions banning the use of deadly weapons had been signed by then. Your point?

MDCCCLXXII


	3. Urania's Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> February 1873. Sherlock's first encounter with a family who would later provide one of his more famous (and comical) initially unpublished cases. Mrs. Urania Rotherby has a strict reputation for always telling the truth – but when her husband is shot dead having been caught climbing out of another woman's bedroom window, has she perhaps been a tad economical with the actualité?

Watson once remarked that for all the modern critics of Victorian society, the high standards worked at the time because they set something for people to strive towards. They may have fallen short on occasion (as would be very clearly demonstrated in this particular case) but the higher the goal, the higher the level of morality achieved. Now in the 1930s with our far more _laissez-faire_ world, that much-decried approach seems increasingly wise.

When he published my sixty original adventures, Watson had from time to time make references to other cases that for one reason or another could not be published. This was solely to explain why were in such and such a place at such and such a time or occasionally why there seemed to be 'gaps' in my workload, so it was frankly unfair of those who read his writings to whine that he was just teasing them. One of those cases which did later see the light of day was the rather amusing matter of the Hammerford Inheritance, but as it happened that was not my first involvement with that curious family. I shall cover them more when the time comes, but for now I had a rather strange matter with the late Sir Julius Hammerford's daughter Urania, whose husband had just been shot dead – _by the husband of a lady whose bed-room window he had been trying to climb out of!_

Or perhaps not.......

MDCCCLXXIII

Apart from the fact that that year would go on to be the wettest on record and I sometimes got wet while walking between classes, my first term at Bargate College had gone well, and the professors were mostly pleased with my studies. Mostly; one had been less than happy when I had corrected him in a factual error during one lecture, and had been very pointedly ignoring me ever since, which suited me well enough as he was a most unpleasant individual. 

I had also settled in well with Watson's friend Mr. James Stamford, who like me considered art and other fripperies as irrelevant and, equally importantly, had the good sense not to stand between me and my coffee first thing of a morning. His only annoying habits were speaking the truth a little too often – I was not so untidy that a cleaner had sustained a serious injury while trying to sort out my side of our main room; the woman had just not looked where she was dusting – and playing some horrible torture device called the Northumbrian bagpipes. Think a set of Scottish bagpipes redesigned for a regrettably successful wager that they could not be made to sound even worse!

I in contrast was a good room-mate and only played my violin very occasionally. I also hardly every used my revolver for target-practice in our rooms, or at least not after that incident with the maid bending over the fire to whom Stamford, most unreasonably, had forced me to apologize. And I was a most amenable fellow all told, or at least once I had had my coffees of a morning.

Christmas had been the usual family nightmare; I could understand why so many of my siblings had moved out as soon as they were old enough. Living at home still then were three immediate elder siblings, the twins Guilford and Evelith (not half a brain between them) and my sister Anna, plus my brother Logan who was five years my senior in age but still as dopey as ever. Although sharp enough when it came to avoiding our Mother's terrible stories, I noted!

Hilary (or Spring) Term at Bargate was the shortest of the three but still had a week's break halfway through, which was why early February found me back in Guilford Street and hoping desperately that Mother had no finished stories that she wanted me to look through. I wished to return to my studies still sane, thank you very much! Luckily she did not – but she did have a friend of hers who was involved in a rather curious case that she asked me to look into, which I did. As a result I ran into a case where I found that the line between truth and lies could sometimes be rather indistinct.

MDCCCLXXIII

Mr. George Hill was an unremarkable fellow, I thought as he sat down in Moira's office. He was about thirty-five years of age, well-to-do and not overly pompous. He was also very clearly a worried man.

“I was hoping that your sister's company might help with my brother”, he said hopefully.

Moira had been right when she remarked how, whether asking for help or offering information, people never seemed to sort themselves out beforehand. As she had said; surely a little organization was not too much to ask for? I had observed the same to Stamford one time over how haphazard some things were at Bargate and he had for some reason looked around our room before nodding what I felt was a shade too fervently. Odd.

“What is wrong with your brother?” I asked.

“It was in the 'Times' yesterday”, he said. “He shot a fellow dead when he caught him clambering out of his own wife's bedroom – almost naked, damnation; what are men coming to these days? – and now he faces a trial. Perhaps even gaol!”

I thought that unlikely, unless there was more to things that he had not got round to telling me. It was one of the great strengths of the English jury system that, much as the authorities might wish for a conviction, twelve good men and true would never condemn a man for shooting the fellow who had been caught cuckolding him.

“Is there something else?” I asked warily.

He nodded.

“George works in the City, you see”, he said. “I am sure you know what that means.”

Ah. Whether or not this fellow's brother was cleared, the mud would continue to stick to his good name for many a year – the old 'no smoke without fire' thing – and might well ruin him whether he was innocent or not. 

“Is there any doubt about the circumstances?” I asked.

My visitor shook his head.

“Mr. Rotherby was seem climbing out of the window as well as plummeting to his death”, he said glumly. “Worse, it happened at exactly one o' clock and Big Ben was just striking the hour, so everyone who saw it was certain of the time.”

I winced at at that. Now I remembered reading the article and for that matter the victim. Mr. Danforth Rotherby was – had been – one of the loudest and most unpleasant businessmen in the city; he had always been sounding off about everything to anyone who could not run away fast enough. That he had been shot by an annoyed husband was only really surprising in that someone else had not gotten to him first.

“Why is the time important?” I asked.

“The police wondered about the victim's cousin, Mr. Duncan Rotherby”, Mr. Hill said. “He was staying with the family at the time and there were rumours that he and Mrs. Urania Rotherby.... you know.”

Unfortunately I knew. Ugh!

“But he cannot have been involved”, Mr. Hill sighed. “The police had thought that Mr. Duncan became aware of his cousin's behaviour – he should have known! – and perhaps tipped off my brother. He certainly came home at an odd hour, although he claimed to have forgotten some important papers. But Mrs. Rotherby said that she was talking to Mr. Duncan up to five minutes to one, when she looked at a clock and realized that she had an afternoon appointment.”

I thought that a little odd. Ladies of Mrs. Rotherby's class usually had a secretary or some such person to remind them of such things.

“We shall look into this matter for you, sir”, I promised.

“Thank you”, Mr. Hill said, clearly relieved. “I really do fear that this might be the end of my poor brother otherwise.”

MDCCCLXXIII

I spoke to Moira about this case and she suggested that we employ the services of a lady called Miss Elvira Gorringe who, she said, was one of the top scientists in London despite being not quite eighteen years of age.

“Why would we need a scientist?” I asked, puzzled.

“She is also one of the best thieves in the city!” my know-all sibling smirked.

One certainly got variety living in London. _Except when it came to siblings who smirked too much!_

MDCCCLXXIII

Miss Gorringe was able to obtain for me a full list of all Mr. Frederick Hill's movements that fateful day, but at first it seemed of little use. There was only one period unaccounted for when he had put aside a short ten-minute period between half-past eleven and twenty to twelve so he could speak to 'someone', but that seemed unimportant. 

Until I had a stroke of luck when walking down the hallway of our Guilford Street home. I paused by the mirror to try to straighten my as ever unruly hair, then checked the time on my watch. And suddenly I saw just how this 'crime' had been committed.

MDCCCLXXIII

There are certain advantages to coming from a rich and important family. I was able to explain matters to Father and he promised to apply pressure in certain areas so that the case against Mr. Frederick Hill would be dropped within days, if not sooner. I did wonder how he was able to promise such a thing even in his position, but Moira explained that her agency had quite a long list of things that the great and the good got up to which were neither great nor good, and that anyone annoying the family might prompt her to start informing the newspapers of what was on it.

She really did not need to add 'starting with the cabinet minister and the brass candlestick fetish'! Way too much information!

MDCCCLXXIII

The following day I called at the house of Mrs. Urania Rotherby where I was admitted by a footman who bore a fair resemblance to someone that I had seen on a Northumberland railway platform not long back. There were the usual signs that this was a house in mourning although I did note that the owner of the house was wearing a bare minimum of black. And that her handsome cousin was rather too close to her when we sat down.

Hmm.

“I saw in the 'Times' this morning that the police have decided not to bring a prosecution against Mr. Hill for shooting your husband”, I said carefully.

“I suppose that that is to have been expected”, the lady sighed, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief in an impressive display of fake grief. “Given what he had been doing....”

“And who!” her cousin interjected, rather unhelpfully. “Do not worry, dear. I shall be with you through thick and thin as we deal with this mess.

“Thank you”, she smiled, “It really was sheer bad luck that Mr. Hill returned home when he did.”

“Actually”, I said with a smile, “it was not. Especially when one considers that he was told of his wife's infidelity an hour and a half prior and could only return home after an important meeting.”

They both looked at me in shock. The lady had gone rather red.

“What do you mean?” Mr. Rotherby demanded.

“Mr. Hill met a gentleman that morning who told him what was going on”, I said calmly. “That gentleman knew how regular his schedule was and that he had to immediately attend a meeting afterwards that he could not get out of. That gentleman was _you,_ sir.”

Mrs. Rotherby glared at me.

“Duncan was here with me until nearly one o' clock”, she said firmly. “I will swear on the Holy Bible that I saw the clock saying five minutes to one o' clock when I left him. And I do not lie!”

“You do, however, stretch the truth to beyond breaking-point, madam”, I said. “When you told the police that you saw the time as five minutes to one, you knew that that was not true.”

“Sir, I protest!”

She was visibly angry now. I was glad that I had my gun in my pocket.

“What you actually saw was a clock saying five minutes past eleven”, I said. “You were aware of your reputation for honesty so you made sure that you then looked in the nearby mirror, where the reflection seemed to say five minutes to one. If later challenged of course you could have just claimed that it was a mistake, but you judged that your reputation would be enough. It was – until I worked out your little deception and put out the word. We have the cab-driver who picked up your cousin from the back of the house and took him to meet Mr. Hill. We have a waitress from the restaurant in which they met. And we have the footman at Mrs. Hill's house who saw him waiting outside when his master arrived back.”

Mr. Rotherby drew himself up to a not very impressive full height.

“That will never stand up in court”, he said stiffly, “especially now the police have dropped the case against Mr. Hill.”

“I quite agree”, I said.

They both looked at me in astonishment, then relief. I could see them thinking that they were surely in the clear now.

“ _”But”_ , I said menacingly, “I have instructed certain people in the newspaper business to start making inquiries as the movements of you both, sir, madam. I have also suggested that they may care to look at certain hotels in Brighton and Eastbourne where a 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' checked in some time back. I am sure that they will find something soon, which of course you will be delighted over.”

“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Rotherby demanded.

“As you said in an article recently, immoral behaviour should bring its own punishment”, I smiled. “I am sure that someone as 'moral' as you would have included your own behaviour in that. Have a good day!”

With that I left them to stew in a juice of their own making.

MDCCCLXXIII

Mrs. Rotherby soon after found that her cousin's pledge to stand by her through thick and thin did not extend to the really thin, as he left the country when the first set of allegations appeared in a particularly sordid society-magazine and were soon picked up by the London newspapers. The fellow fled abroad and was never seen or heard of again, while she died just four years later. Had she lived, she may well have been a factor in a case a short time after that involving her decidedly strange (even by the standards of my own) family, the Hammerfords.

Moira was able to make sure that Mr. Duncan Rotherby's flight received maximum newspaper coverage as, she said, that would ensure that everyone knew the suspicions about Mr. Frederick Hill were quite mistaken. I am pleased to say that his reputation remained unsullied and he continued to prosper in his business dealings.

MDCCCLXXIII


	4. Uncle Edwy's Devise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April 1873. Edwy Holmes dies and leaves bequests to certain of his nephews. Both Sherlock and his elder brother Logan are in for a surprise and, in one case, a big one!

This was a time of great change in the world, on so many levels. Some were good – I was sure that many children were delighted when the first chocolate Easter eggs were produced that spring – but others showed that certain people in authority still did not get it.

That spring there was a play called 'The Happy Land' which caused public outrage. Not for any act of indecency or some such thing, but because the play directly portrayed the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the First Commissioner of Works¹ in such a way that they could clearly be identified. That, in the eyes of many people (and especially of those gentlemen portrayed in a not totally flattering light) was Absolutely Unforgivable! Foolishly the government had the Lord Chamberlain try to censor the play, which to the surprise of no-one except the government immediately made it much more popular. Some people never learn!

MDCCCLXXIII

I am sure that the Good Lord created annoying siblings for a reason, although I am rapidly coming around to the theory that the Devil may have slipped that one in when no-one was looking. I had asked my sister Moira to keep an eye on the progress of Mr. John Watson on his medical course – merely to maintain a polite interest, of course – and she had provided me with that information. Quite how she was able to smirk through the medium of the handwritten note Lord alone knew, but it was incredibly annoying. The important thing was that the young fellow was doing well and that St. Bartholomew's was most pleased with his progress on his course. It said something for modern technology that a fellow could study at an institution some three hundred miles away, but for once I was glad for that technology.

I might have been even gladder if they could have developed a way to tone down certain letters from certain irritating siblings! Also, quite why she had thought I needed to know the gentleman was 'single and not seeing anyone just now' was a mystery that not even I could solve!

MDCCCLXXIII

Much as it pains me to so do, I must fully introduce two more members of my family (even if one if them is about to exit it). First my brother Logan, some five years my senior. He was a strange fish even for our family, a slender blond fellow who could have made himself really handsome if he had tried (or so Moira told me; this from someone whose own husband always looked wind-blown if not a mess, although being Moira's husband I was wise enough not to inquire just why that was). Logan however rarely bothered with his appearance and my sister really did not need to give me a pointed look when saying that! He always came across as slightly dopey although like most of us he had a keen survival instinct when it came to avoiding Mother's dreadful stories. Her latest horror about a group of what Robin Hood's grandson got up to with some incautious knights, 'Under The Greenwood Tree'..... ugh!

The good thing about Logan was that he got along with almost everyone – except Hilton, Randall, Evelith and Guilford; he was easy-going, not a saint, Which brings me to Uncle Edwy. He was one year my father's junior and the second of three sons, so their father Mr. George Holmes's impressive estate was divided equally between all three boys (the two girls had both married extremely well, one into minor Continental royalty, even). The third brother, Uncle Edred, had died aged just twenty and his inheritance had been divided between his two siblings.

Shortly before that there had reportedly been amazement in the family when the curmudgeonly Uncle Edwy had found a woman prepared to marry him, but sadly she had died in childbirth although the son, rather oddly named Ajax (his mother had been a Jacqueline) had survived and had been raised by Uncle Edwy. My late uncle had bequeathed his still impressive financial holdings among three of us; myself, Logan and our brother Mark who was nearly two years Logan's senior and who Uncle Edwy had helped obtain his position in government, whatever that was (I did not then know). There were also some physical bequests to myself and Logan which was why the two of us had been invited to meet our uncle's lawyer in his old house, although we had not been told what these were. It had, predictably, raised more than a few eyebrows among my less pleasant siblings (cough, Hilton, Randall, Evelith and Guilford, cough) that they had received nothing from our uncle, but there had been a good reason for that. 

_He had met them!_

MDCCCLXXIII

Uncle Edwy had lived in a surprisingly small house in Notting Hill, although it was I saw when we arrived very private in its high-walled and generous grounds. My uncle had in his latter years acquired a reputation for having a somewhat unusual sense of humour (yes, this was someone who had Guilford for a brother talking!) and I noted the very large gravestones with 'A. Burglar' and 'A. Robber' just inside the front gate. They were of course fakes – I hoped!

“Why do you think he wanted us to spend the night here?” Logan wondered as we approached the place. “It looks like it might well fall down with us inside of it!”

“His lawyer is meeting us here and will sign everything over to us tomorrow”, I said. “Uncle Edwy was a strange fish but I am sure that he had his reasons. One night spent sleeping in a strange house is not much to ask in return for an inheritance.”

Our uncle had indeed had his reasons, as one of us was about to very thoroughly find out!

MDCCCLXXIII

Mr. Thomas Peters was an elderly fellow even in a profession not known for its youthful members, but he came over as trustworthy enough. Father was I knew very thorough in his business dealings and had said that our uncle was the same; he would not have employed someone untrustworthy.

“I should explain that I retired last year”, Mr. Peters said, “but I promised Mr. Holmes that I would personally oversee his Devise for him.”

As well as using such an archaic word for a will, I wondered just what was so untrustworthy about this fellow's son and/or successor at his company that our uncle had felt compelled to make such a request. Clearly Moira's arrant cynicism was catching!

“As you know the financial element of the estate, which includes this house, is to be realized and the funds divided equally between the two of you and your brother Mark”, the lawyer said. “Your uncle had received several offers from developers in recent years so there should be no trouble in realizing a very large sum, which will set you all up quite comfortably.”

I did not know why, but I felt instinctively that there was a 'but' lurking somewhere nearby. I stared pointedly at the lawyer, who blushed.

“To you, Mr. Sherlock, your late uncle also left his library and scientific equipment”, he said. “Then there was his business, which he bequeathed solely to Mr. Logan here. Along with something else.”

That 'but' was getting closer. I waited expectantly. There was a knock at the door.

“Come in!” the lawyer called out.

A man came through the door. It was definitely a man, since it had apparently left most of its clothing behind and was wearing only a pair of rather too short shorts. The muscled behemoth almost bursting out of them was at least six foot six tall, possibly more, and looked at us hungr... hopefully.

I noted for some reason that I was not too far from a large window.

“Ah, Mr. Ajax”, the lawyer smiled as if introducing nearly-naked members of Mankind to clients that one has barely met was somehow socially acceptable. “Mr. Logan, this is the other part of your bequest.”

I had to work hard not to laugh at my brother's face as he stared in astonishment at the..... thing before us. Logan himself was like me about six foot so several inches above the average height, but he was of a very slender build so this thing could likely have had him for breakfast. I wondered; take it home and show it Hilton once it was hungry enough.....

“Mr. Holmes!”

For a moment I thought that my brilliant career was to be cut short under the weight of the thing approaching me at speed, but thankfully the behemoth swerved at the last minute and embraced Logan in a fierce hug. There was definitely the sound of gasping and even more definitely a slight if quickly concealed smile on the lawyer's face before he recovered.

“Mr. Ajax, sir”, he said gently. “It might be well if you were to let him breathe.”

The behemoth relaxed his grip on my brother who, thankfully, stopped turning blue. Although he did not exactly hurry to move away from the embrace. I thought back to Moira, and to my own reaction on a certain Northumberland railway-station platform the previous year.

It seemed that Uncle Edwy had known rather more of certain of his nephews than we had thought.

MDCCCLXXIII

The lawyer left us, having pointed out where food had been put by and promised to return the next day. It was then just us and Ajax, who was perfectly happy to sit in his chair with Logan in his lap.

“Shut up!” my brother grumbled.

“I did not say anything”, I pointed out.

“You have an irritating judgmental silence!” he snapped back.

I did not smirk, as only very bad people do that. Instead I just smiled at him, which seemed to annoy him even more. Although he did not move from his post until bedtime, I noted.

MDCCCLXXIII

I breakfasted alone the following morning, having waited for a brother who for some reason did not appear. It was also disappointing; not a proper breakfast as there was no bacon but we could stop somewhere on the way home for lunch and have some then. Also Mr. Peters was due back at half-past nine.

It was nearly nine when I finally saw my brother again, and I would not have had to be a detective of any sort to know that someone had not had a good night. Ajax carried him into the breakfast-room and placed him very carefully onto a chair (a padded one, I noted not at all cruelly), but still elicited a pained moan from him. I quirked an eyebrow at him and only narrowly succeeded in holding back a smirk.

“Not what you are thinking and stop it now!” he grumbled. “He insisted on sleeping with me and I could hardly breathe all night. I would wake him, he would look all pitiful, and five minutes later I would be gasping for air again!”

“Better that than gasping for some other reason!” I snarked.

He just glared at me, then winced. Apparently even complicated facial manoeuvres hurt. Hah!

MDCCCLXXIII

I was surprised when our legal friend did not arrive until nearly eleven o' clock, although he was full of apologies when he did.

“I am so sorry”, he said. “Did you see the news this morning?”

I almost said that someone was likely not in a fit state to do anything as strenuous as holding a news-paper. But I caught my brother's look and very generously refrained. This time.

“We have not had one delivered”, I said instead. “What has happened?”

“The White Star Line's luxury liner 'R.M.S. Atlantic' has gone down with the loss of over five hundred lives”, he said. “Off the coast of Newfoundland; we have two important clients who had people on board so as you can imagine, things have been very busy. There are some three hundred and fifty or so survivors but naturally information is scarce even with this wonderful new telegraph system.”

He sighed and sat down opposite us, noting with a slight smile how Ajax took a chair next to Logan and immediately moved closer to him.

“Mr. Logan, your uncle owned some six businesses across the capital”, the lawyer began. “They work under the banner of 'The London Gentlemen's Debating Society'.”

That did not sound overly exciting, I thought.

“They are in fact a chain of molly-houses”, the lawyer continued.

On the other hand, even I might be wrong occasionally. My brother and I both stared at the lawyer in astonishment. Our uncle, one of the crustiest curmudgeons ever to crustily curmudgeon in a crustily curmudgeonly manner, running.... male brothels? It sounded as bad as something Mother might have dreamed up!

Logan caught my eye and I could see that we had both had the same thought. When she found out about this.... just how far away did we have time to get? 

_(I could likely get further as I would not be being embraced by the hulking Ajax!)_

“As you know, the late Mr. Edwy Holmes's wife died in childbirth”, Mr. Peters said carefully. “He had several offers of marriage in his later years but he always refused, and instead poured his energies into developing his, ahem, perhaps slightly irregular business.”

Again I could see that Logan and I had had the same thought. Fortunately the subject of that thought was now wrapped so tightly around my brother that he had not noticed our exchange of looks.

“The late Mr. Holmes wanted someone who he could trust to look after his most precious possession”, the lawyer said, looking pointedly at Logan and the man once again trying to enfold him completely. “Mr. Logan, you will have to sign as guardian for Mr. Ajax, and promise to take good care of him.”

“Of course I will”, Logan promised. “Er, Jack? Can you let me go for a moment? Please?”

There was an unhappy growl from behind him but the vice-like embrace relaxed enough to allow him the use of his arms, and the lawyer brought the papers over for him to sign with something that looked suspiciously like a smirk. Not that my brother had time to notice; he was barely done before he was entombed again.

And not exactly fighting to get away. Oh well, at least he was happy.

MDCCCLXXIII

There was to be a happy outcome for two other people in my life as a result of my brother's sudden inheritance, for the Selkirk twins who I had sent off to that Essex sanatorium so that they might recover from the ill-treatment so cruelly inflicted on them by their uncle were just finishing their time there and were ready to resume normal life. I was able to obtain them places working as porters on the Great Eastern Railway (I could have got them something better but apparently that was what they wanted as they both loved the railways), and they soon settled in as some of the 'boys' at The London Gentlemen's Debating Society, where being twins they were soon in great demand. For reasons that Logan did not have to share with me but, being Logan, the bastard did!

Uncle Edwy had also left a series of rules under which his Debating Societies operated, and Logan had the good sense the stick with them which served not only maintain but improve his institution's standing in what was generally a sordid business. First, although the men who worked there were colloquially called 'boys', all applicants had to be at least eighteen years of age _and to look it._ Other places where the 'boys' really were boys.... that was just disgusting! There was also a whole set of rules about what the 'boys' could and could not do, and if they broke any of the rules then they risked dismissal. That might not sound much but part of my uncle's business practice had been to lay aside some forty per cent of a 'boy's income in a bank-account and then pay it to them as a pension when they retired, provided of course they had not breached any rules in the interim. It said a lot for how well these places were run that such breaches were rare indeed; indeed over the next four decades there would be a sum total of two. Few 'regular' businesses could have boasted such a record. 

I would have remarked to my brother about his unusual inheritance, but apparently Ajax had been asked by our uncle to demonstrate 'very fully' just what went on in Debates once they went to the first Debating Society. Which was probably why I did not see much of poor Logan for the next month!

MDCCCLXXIII

_Notes:_  
_1) In charge of the government's works and public buildings. As of 2021 those tasks come under the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs._

MDCCCLXXIII


	5. Plane And Simple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August 1873. Sooner than he might have expected Sherlock finds himself called in to help the LeStrade family again. The now Sergeant LeStrade (thanks partly to a certain recent acquaintance's efforts) is worried about his younger brother Bors, who has been involved in an accident while working on the railway. Sherlock investigates and finds skulduggery up the Junction.

I mentioned recently my unexpected inheritance from my Uncle Edwy, along with my brother Logan's rather larger and even more unexpected inheritance which was why I did not see much of him that spring. Or for most of summer. I should I suppose have expected my parents to have been concerned, but luckily I was away from the house when it emerged that Mother already knew and was writing a story about the whole thing. 'Cracker Jack' so Mark told me; he had fled the house as Mother kept giving him meaningful looks when talking about it.

I suppose that I had better introduce Mark while I am at it, for all that he is a prideful fellow, which means I also have to introduce his twin Carl. Some seven years my senior, the Good Lord was clearly exercising his famous sense of humour in making those two gentlemen twins, for although they were almost identical in appearance (a more with it and muscular version of Logan in each case), they could hardly have been more different character-wise. 

Carlyon (he is named after a village in Cornwall) is a lieutenant in the Army and if he does not end up as a general, then this Nation is doomed. Mark on the other hand (surprisingly he is named for a village in Somersetshire) is a lot more subtle. It was he who brought this case to me, which was surprising as it seemed far from his usual range of interests. But then he had had other cause to come and see me and it had been totally of his own making.

MDCCCLXXIII

I knew full well why the twenty-six year-old gentleman before me was sitting down so carefully. But then he had brought it on himself.

“It is your own fault”, I said unsympathetically. “You alone knew of Uncle Edwy's Debating Societies, yet you did not tell either Logan or me before we went there.”

“Logan seems grateful enough just now”, he muttered. “Ow!”

The reason for my sibling's less than perfect togetherness just now was, as I said, his own fault. One of his relatively few character failings was that he tended to get a little too prideful, so I had arranged a little surprise for him. Logan had told me that Mark had a steady lover called Mr. Cheiron 'Kai' Jones who had had to go up to Scotland for a family funeral (I had been frankly surprised given the appalling way in which such men were treated that he had been allowed time off, but on reflection I guessed that Mark may have pulled a few strings for that).

I had met Mark at our gymnasium a days back, just before Mr. Jones's departure, and he had been boasting that he was sure a sex-machine like him would not survive a whole week of abstinence so had asked Logan if he had anyone reliable (I might add here that as well as his preferring to stick to one man, Logan also knew that the likes of Randall and Hilton would try to get at him that way, even if such stupidity would certainly bring upon them The Wrath Of Mother, which was like The Wrath Of God but infinitely worse). I had therefore had a word with Logan and arranged for Balin and Balan to see Mark. 

For a double session!

“Two of them!” Mark grumbled. “Identical twins. Why do those places have such steep steps in and out?”

I may or may not have sniggered at his discomfiture.

“And to cap it all Gladstone is cross with me over these martyrs”, he sighed.

“These what?” I asked, confused.

“The Ascott Martyrs”, he said. “A group of women up in Oxfordshire who were chased into the court system by some stupid land-owner because they tried to stop him from treating his workers like dirt. It all ended in a riot in some place called Chipping Norton and the authorities there having to smuggle the women away in the dead of night to avoid an angry mobs. But it reached the Queen who is not great fan of the Grand Old Man, and she told him in no uncertain terms to fix it as she was going to send the women some money as a show of sisterly support. Worse, Mother heard of it and threatened to go round to Downing Street; you have never seen so many headless chickens in one place!”

Moira had told me that Mark and Randall were both what the latter liked to call 'fixers', people who cleaned up messes for politicians that said politicians had made themselves in the first place. The main difference between them was that Mark had managed to retain his humanity while doing such a base job while Randall had palpably not. Mycroft and even Guilford on occasion (hard though that latter is to believe) also worked for the government. 

“But I wanted to see you anyway”, Mark said, “despite you being the cruellest little brother in all Mankind.”

“Actually Logan did mention a special shop he knows where his 'boys' can pick up all sorts of interesting 'supplies'”, I said airily. “I could always introduce Balin and Balan to that. Maybe even give them an introductory voucher that....”

“Stop trying to end me, Sherlock!”

I smiled innocently at him.

“Anyway Kai is back now”, he said, looking suspiciously at me. “Something happened on his line and I said that you might look into it, especially as the fellow involved is sort of known to you.”

I looked hard at him.

 _”Sort of known?”_ I asked warily. “What, do I know his shoes or something?”

He scowled at my brilliant wit.

“That policeman you got promoted to sergeant”, he said. “LeStrade, the one who looks like an East End thug. His younger brother works on the railways; he is eighteen or thereabouts and he was involved in an accident on the line where Kai works.”

“Which line is that?” I asked.

“The Tottenham & Hampstead Junction Railway”, he said. “It is basically a front for the Great Eastern who have been trying, if unsuccessfully, to run a line over to the West End where most of the money is. This Bors fellow was working on an upgrade to a junction and was struck by a train.”

I looked even harder at him. He might work for the government (which meant that he was a highly-skilled liar) but I had learned a lot in the last year or so working for Moira, and I could tell when someone was withholding something.

“This fellow is a bit simple”, Mark admitted, “but Kai says that he is a good worker. Or was; he is in hospital and he may never work on the railways again.”

That gave the matter a degree of urgency, I knew, as hospital care was expensive and even with the small inheritance that I had secured for him and his siblings after dealing with the vile Sir Mordred LeStrade, that expense soon mounted up.

“Why did you not bring Kai with you?” I wondered.

“He is on duty today”, Mark said with a smile, “but he gets off tonight!”

He was well on his way to Balin, Balan, those 'supplies' and a double session. A certain North London fireman might well find that he had no government minister left to..... for reasons!

MDCCCLXXIII

Mark arranged for his lover to call in on me during the latter's next day off, which was a little vexing as I had a whole list of things to get done prior to my returning to Bargate (I know that that was the best part of two months away but unlike some people I like to keep myself organized and my family could shut up right now!). Still I put time aside for him. Hopefully he might be able to provide some illumination to exactly what had befallen young Mr. Bors LeStrade.

Mr. Cheiron Jones was a slender young fellow in his late thirties, and I noted much as I did not want to the loose trousers. Mark had commented that the man's parents had definitely had foresight as he had been named after the half-man, half-horse character from Greek legend.....

Definitely that double session with Balan and Balin. With 'supplies' thrown in!

Mr. Jones's eyebrows shot up when I showed him what I had obtained.

“I thought the Inspectorate wouldn't have bothered with a small thing like we had”, he said.

“This is the Railway Company's own investigation into the matter”, I said. “Unfortunately it is written in their own railway language. Read it if you will, then tell me what you think.”

He had the good sense not to ask just how I had obtained such a document (Miss Gorringe again) and read through it, frowning as he did so. When he had finished, he shook his unruly locks.

“Makes no sense, sir”, he said. 

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, they're lying”, he said.

“How can you know that?” I asked.

“Detonators.”

I looked at him in confusion.

“They're sort of firework-things that can be strapped to the line”, he explained. “The better railway companies use them to protect men working on a line in case a train comes along.”

“Is your Company one of the better ones?” I asked.

“Sort of”, he said. “The management aren't up to much but it's pretty much controlled by the Great Eastern, and they're pretty good when it comes to safety.”

Not that there was much competition in that, I thought, as railway companies in general had very poor safety records. The year 1870 had been particularly bad with five major accidents in the last four months; things had been a little better since but many people were still wary about travelling. And most companies still worked far too hard to discourage the lower classes from using _their_ trains (although coincidentally I would shortly have acase concerning the ending of that policy).

“Do you happen to know any of the men at the scene of the accident?” I asked.

My visitor shook his head.

“Even they don't talk to low-life like us firemen”, he said, not seeming put out by that fact. “And you know how it is, sir. If someone's done something that led to this, no-one will want to talk.”

 _But perhaps some of them can be persuaded_ , I thought.

MDCCCLXXIII

Mr. Bors LeStrade had been struck by a wagon that had been left on the main-line, which had been propelled onto him by a train which had for some reason missed whatever warning-signals had been in place, including those detonators. According to the report two sets of the things had been placed on the line that the train had come across, one pair a thousand yards away from where the men were working and the second pair at half that distance. Some of the men who had been working alongside Mr. LeStrade reported hearing one set of explosions, although with all the noise that they themselves had been making it was perhaps understandable that they had not heard the second set.

Or was it?

MDCCCLXXIII

A couple of days after Mr. Jones's visit – I may or may not have tipped him with both cash and a voucher for a certain 'interesting' shop that would certainly bring a certain overly proud brother crashing down to Earth with a bump – I had a second railwayman sitting opposite me in Moira's office. Mr. Walter Jones (no relation to the fireman) was about thirty-five years of age, thin, scruffy and clearly terrified. He was surprised when I poured him a drink but he most definitely needed it.

“I think, sir, that you know something about what happened just outside Junction Road Station recently”, I said, being careful not to raise my voice in case he bolted for the door. “I am sure that your employers either bought your silence or threatened you, but the brother of a friend of mine was the man injured, and I intend to obtain justice for him. You know what happened that day, and I want to know. If you tell me, I can make it seem that I found out some other way so your Company will never know.”

I left off the threat that otherwise, I might challenge the company and expose him. I would not have done such a foul thing, but I had to get this man to talk. 

He swallowed nervously.

“Mr. Plane, sir.”

He looked at me quite piteously. I felt sorry for him, but I needed rather more than that. I just waited.

“He was the foreman that day”, Mr. Jones said. “He always hated Bors; called him slow. And he went off to put down those detonators himself; he'd never normally do a job that he could've dumped on someone else.”

“There were no explosions”, I said. “And he threatened you so that some of you admitted to hearing at least one of them.”

The fellow nodded.

“There was a red flag set up on the line as well”, he said, “so he must've removed that. The top brass must've been in on it and all.”

“How can you know that?” I asked.

“Else they would've diverted all the trains onto the other line”, he said miserably. “Will Bors be all right?”

“That is for the doctors”, I sighed. “Here.”

I handed him a coin along with my card. He looked at both in surprise.

“I will tackle the Company without letting them know that you spoke to me”, I promised. “But if the worst happens and they go after you merely on a suspicion, then use that to contact me and I will help you. I promise.”

He looked intensely relieved. 

“Thank you, sir!”

MDCCCLXXIII

I took a train to the area in question, which was a somewhat questionable part of Islington. The station had, the report said, only recently been opened but it seemed to be quite busy. I walked around the area to the west of where the accident had happened, and was fortunate enough to find what I wanted.

Now for justice.

MDCCCLXXIII

A few days later I was being shown into the offices of Mr. Stephen Brown, director of the mighty (at least by the size of the coat of arms on the wall) Tottenham & Hampstead Junction Railway Company. Unfortunately for this villain, no shield was going to be big enough to save him. 

“What brings you to our Company, may I ask sir?” he asked.

He was a balding, short and rather aggressive-looking little fellow in his fifties who was clearly wary of me. But then guilty men did tend to act guiltily.

“I have been investigating the matter of the accident in which Mr. Bors LeStrade, an employee of yours, was injured recently”, I said. “The young man's brother is a policeman” (I caught the wince at that) “as well as a friend of mine. I am afraid, sir, that my investigations uncovered something rather unsavoury.”

He almost gave himself away by opening his mouth to insist none of the man at the accident site could have talked, but saved himself. From that at least.

“You have evidence for that?” he sniffed.

“Yes.”

He visibly flinched.

“I do hope that it is not one of our employees”, he managed eventually. “They are all upstanding young men who we would be sorry to lose.”

 _Liar_ , I thought, not at all uncharitably.

“No, it is someone outside the company”, I said. “A young gentleman who was crossing the railway line via the footbridge that leads to Wyndham Crescent, just as the train involved in the accident was passing underneath. He is certain of the time as he was headed to an appointment. He heard something rather strange.”

“What was that?” the director asked.

“Nothing.”

The fellow looked at me in confusion.

“So he heard nothing”, he said. “So what?”

“You can imagine my surprise”, I said, “in finding that the Company's own investigation into the incident” (a definite flinch that time) “claimed that several of the men had heard at least one set of detonators going off. Yet a man passing almost directly above where the things had _reportedly_ been placed on the track, and much closer than those workmen, heard no such thing. If the Railway Inspectorate takes an interest in that difference of hearing, they may decide to put your workers on the stand and make them swear on the Good Book to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I am not a betting man but I might wager a shilling that some or all of them will belatedly recall that they heard no such noises after all.”

He stared at me in stony silence.

“What do you want?” he ground out.

I handed him a piece of paper. He read what was written on it and nearly leapt out of his chair.

“This is extortion, sir!” he said forcibly. 

“That is the sum which you will pay to Mr. Bors LeStrade within seven days”, I said coolly. “Be advised that his hospital has been advised to send you his bill as well, which is not to be included in this figure. The money will set him up for life, which given that one of your employees nearly ended his life because he did not like working with someone he considered 'simple'. That reminds me; Mr. Plane will be leaving your employ today. Without a reference.”

He glared at me with utter hatred, but he knew that I had won.

MDCCCLXXIII

Considering that Mr. Bors LeStrade had just turned eighteen and had had his whole life in front of him, I considered that I was being fairly lenient with the railway company who had mistreated him so foully. Before leaving however I did point out the second and much larger figure on the sheet that I had handed Mr. Brown, and told him that if Mr. Plane 'somehow' got re-employed then I would be upping my demands to that. 

In a typical move that I would almost come to expect from his type of villain he arranged that the man be re-employed directly by the Great Eastern Railway; it lasted one day before they found out the truth and sacked him – which coincidentally was also the day that Mrs. Brown found out what her husband got up to during those late nights 'working' with his secretary.

Mr. Bors LeStrade got a lot more money!

MDCCCLXXIII


	6. Gulling Mr. Pearl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> December 1873. Sherlock is asked by John to help out a colleague, to wit young Mr. Peter Greenwood who is John's contact for his studies at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. The amiable young trainee doctor is threatened with both disinheritance and being thrown off his course – but why?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Non-graphic off-story mention of abortion.

Ironically it was shortly after I had received some good news about my own studies that I received the letter. Naturally my innate brilliance had served me well at Bargate and shortly before leaving for the Christmas break I had been told that if I kept up my current success, I would be formally advanced a year so could finish my studies in five years rather than six. Or even four if I maintained my excellent progress.

Mother was of course delighted with the news (mercifully it did not inspire her to some new literary horror, which was a relief!). This was all well and good as I was building up courage to telling her that I planned to move out soon. Moira had told me in confidence that Watson's mother was now very will and not expected to last another year, which would mean that he might well come to London in order to complete his studies. St. Bartholomew's did provide accommodation for students which covered the first part of their course, but come 'Seventy-Six Watson would need to find a place for himself. So if I had somewhere by then.....

I did not tackle Mother about the moving out thing, as I knew she had a meeting of her Writing Circle later when she would exchange ideas with her fellow crim.... writers and which usually left her in good mood. This proved a rare lapse of judgement on my part because one of her friends was grievously upset over her husband criticizing this latest war in Africa¹, on the grounds that he thought slavery was not really that bad a thing and we should not be trying to stop those heathens who thought it was acceptable. Idiot! Hence Mother was less than happy come dinner that evening, and Hilton, being Hilton, had to remark that this supporter of such a barbaric practice had a point.

Luckily I had never liked that salt-cellar anyway, and if my brother had thought being at the far end of the table would have stopped her from hitting him with it, then perhaps he really was as dumb as he looked! Incredible though that seemed!

MDCCCLXXIII

I was about to have a distraction of my own courtesy of Watson's next letter, which Father had passed onto me the day after my return. My friend (I do not know why I thought of him as such since we technically had not actually met, but it just seemed right) was most upset as his colleague Mr. Peter Greenwood, through whom his distance-learning was effectively managed, looked set to have to withdraw from the course after a family dispute. This was frankly unacceptable – I could not have my friend's arrangements upset like this – so I went to Moira and asked if anything could be done. 

That reminds me; if I do by some chance ever become prime minister of this Nation, my first new law would be to criminalize unwonted smirking by annoying siblings who are bigger than me!

“I am very busy with this Egyptian thing just now”, she said. “How a country with such a long history can have gotten itself into such a mess is frankly amazing.”

“What thing?” I asked.

“They have virtually bankrupted the country to build that new canal”, she said, “and now they seem to have worked out that for some reason the people who loaned them the money want it back – and said people have the British and French Empires at their back. It is all a mess, and I am having to get what information I can from the people going to and from there. You should go and see Mr. Pike so you can sort your problem out yourself.”

“Who is this 'Mr. Pike'?” I asked.

“Mr. Langdale Pike”, she said. “His parents were keen hill-walkers and named all four boys got named after mountains; his brothers are Bowfell, Scafell and Blisco, which suggests that the French have at least one thing right when it comes to banning some names for offspring! He knows everything about those in high society, including a whole lot that they would much rather he did not.”

“Why does he not run his own agency, then?” I wondered.

“He is rich enough not to need to”, she said, “which I for one am extremely grateful! He lives just off Seven Dials and he will I think help you; Father used his connections to aid his brother Scafell one time.”

I took the address that she gave me, and chose to ignore the knowing look as I walked quickly off. Family!

MDCCCLXXIII

Mr. Langdale Pike was a hard man to describe. My first impression was that of an elderly man before I realized he was more likely around forty years of age. His offices were Spartan and his desk had one of those strange devices with the swinging balls that seemed to serve no purpose other than to make an annoying noise. 

He listened to my problem and nodded.

“The Greenwoods”, he said. “Yes, an interesting family. I know that Mr. Philip Greenwood is worried over his succession as he and his late wife had some eleven children but most died in infancy, leaving them two sons and a daughter who most disobligingly ran off with a travelling salesman. Peter can come over as a bit of an idiot to some but he is quite intelligent. So, unfortunately, is his brother Paul.”

“Why 'unfortunately'?” I asked.

He looked hard at me.

“I meant unfortunately for your friend John Watson”, he said heavily. “As he told you, certain events down in Kent mean that Peter Greenwood, his 'contact' as he calls it, will have to quit the course unless someone takes measures.”

I was impressed, if also rather disturbed that he had known the contents of a letter that Father had only passed to me hours ago that same morning.

“Do you know why Mr. Philip Greenwood has done what he has done?” I asked.

“I know”, Mr. Pike sighed. “Money, of course.”

He sighed again before continuing.

“Mr. Philip Greenwood owns a fair-sized plot of land around his home town of Sevenoaks down in Kent”, he said. “He would like to sell it to the town council for building land and they would like to buy it, but there is a problem. A small plot that lies between it and the town which the owner, the dreadful Mr. Swynford Pearl, did not wish to sell. Without it, getting a road to the Greenwood property is all but impossible.”

“Did not wish?” I asked. “Does that me he is prepared to sell it now?”

“Indirectly”, Mr. Pike said. “Mr. Pearl – his local name is 'Pearl The Swine', which is cruel but accurate – is widowed and has only two daughters to inherit. Wishing to keep the plot in the family, he had been prepared that his elder girl, Veracity, would marry Peter Greenwood's elder brother Paul and the plot would be her dowry, as they call it.”

“But something has happened to change that”, I guessed. 

He nodded.

“Paul Greenwood may be almost identical to the fellow who is younger than him by eleven and a half minutes”, he said, “but only in physicality, not character. I think that your own family more than amply demonstrates just how wide a gap that short time-span can create.”

That was true, I conceded. Character-wise Moira and Hilton could not have been more different, and while Carl and Mark were physically similar their characters too were different. The same could be said of Evelith and Guilford, although in that case it had just been a different type of mistake on the Good Lord's part. A large one, in both cases.

“Paul decided that he preferred Veracity's sister Veronica instead”, Mr. Pike went on. “Being a weak character he did not tell anyone about this, such that his marriage to Veracity is still scheduled for two months time early next year. I am afraid that not being a gentleman he took matters that critical stage too far, which was why Veronica had to pay an unscheduled visit to London recently.”

I winced. I could guess all too well what that visit had been for. Ugh!

“Unfortunately for her, although the.... procedure passed off successfully, she was subsequently seen by one of Mr. Philip Greenwood's friends being rather too intimate with Paul at a nearby restaurant”, Mr. Pike said. “When her father challenged her on this she claimed that it had actually been Peter that she had been seeing, which her being as credible as she is morally vacuous was believed. Hence young Peter finding himself in his current predicament, but at least he had your mutual friend to bring you in.”

I was sure that he did not hesitate or change his voice, yet once again there was definitely something about the way he said that word 'friend'. 

“Why did Mr. Peter Greenwood simply not tell the truth?” I wondered.

“I am afraid that, under pressure from his brother, he helped to arrange the..... procedure”, Mr. Pike said, wincing as he spoke. “He understood all too well that if he denied it, then his father would investigate matters and likely find out the truth.”

“Do you think in that case that Mr. Philip Greenwood would still have disinherited his second son, as the price of that land-sale going through?” I asked.

“Probably”, Mr. Pike said. “He is that sort of person, I am afraid.”

I sighed. What a mess!

MDCCCLXXIII

When we hunted together through my career, Watson would sometimes come up with a phrase which described cases like this as ones which had 'a ragged solution'. There seemed no easy way to remedy matters, but I was determined that whoever else was going to get hurt, Watson's friend would not be one of them. I thought about the matter for some considerable time before I had an idea, and went to see Moira. 

_Who was still smirking, damn her!_

Some little time later we had a visitor to her offices, a Mr. Joscelyn Fordham. He was a pleasant young fellow of about twenty-five years of age, and was almost exactly what I needed. A haircut and a few other changes, and he would be perfect.

MDCCCLXXIII

Despite her being the most annoying eldest sister in all Creation, Moira was at least able to help me further by engendering a financial problem which necessitated Mr. Philip Greenwood's immediate presence in the capital. That meant he would be staying at his club, the Trafalgar, for at least one night as he would use the trip to attend to several other non-urgent matters, so I knew where I would find him.'

I was sat reading on a park-bench opposite the club's impressive entrance, and Mr. Fordham was sat on the next bench also apparently engrossed in his book. I saw Mr. Greenwood approaching us – even the worst detective in the world could have solved the riddle as to who had eaten all the pies! - and the road-works on the opposite side of the road (which Moira had arranged for me) meant that he walked over to our side to avoid all the dust. I was half-afraid that his nose was so elevated he might miss the obvious, but Mr. Fordham briefly lowered his book at just the right time, causing the fellow to pull up sharply.

_”Peter? What are you doing here?”_

He was naturally surprised, since as far as he knew his second son was several miles away attending a college lecture. Mr. Fordham turned and stared at him in surprise.

“Sir?”

Mr. Greenwood was not the brightest of fellows as I knew, but he quickly realized his mistake.

“You are not Peter!”

He said it as if my friend was somehow at fault for not being who he had first thought. How very dare he!

“Ah, you must be Mr. Greenwood”, Mr. Fordham smiled.

The land-owner looked at him in confusion.

“I am sure that I have no idea who _you_ are, sir”, he said haughtily.

“We have never met”, Mr. Fordham said, “but when I was at school I knew your son Paul's fiancée, Veronica. In fact I met her in London recently.”

I could see the train-crash of emotions on the landowner's face, with the horrific realization that he had falsely accused his second son of something that he had very clearly not been guilty of. And that he was likely going to have to apologize soon. Just after he had ducked to avoid those flying pigs.

Watson really was becoming a bad influence on me. And we had not actually met in person!

MDCCCLXXIII

Mercifully Mr. Philip Greenwood drew back from the disinheritance of his second son, although the latter was never informed just why until I told him some time later. His father soon had more than enough other troubles to distract him; just days before his marriage two months later, Mr. Paul Greenwood eloped.

_With the parlour-maid at his father's house!_

MDCCCLXXIII

_Notes:_   
_1) The Third Anglo-Ashanti War. The British had bought out the rival Dutch colonies along the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) and took a decidedly less accepting view towards the slave-trade than their predecessors. A short war (1873-1874) secured victory for the Empire. Interestingly for such a small area the Dutch Gold Coast had originally been split between the Netherlands, Brandenburg (forerunner of the German Empire) and Sweden._

MDCCCLXXIII


	7. The Girl Next Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March-June 1874. Many years later, John would remark that the trouble with Sherlock's choice of career was that it was a bit like scientific progress; one never knew just what can of worms one might be opening until the worms were well on their way to worm-freedom. This was to prove one such case, which the detective initially came to hate having been dragged into.   
> But then there were some longer-term compensations....

Being the cynic that he is, was, and likely always would be, Watson would often say that when good things happened in his life, it just meant that bad things had more time to get in line and take a number, ready to balance things out again. As I said, a total cynic, so when I returned home to Guilford Street that spring having had confirmed that I was now a full year ahead in my studies, I had no reason to think that things were about to go so spectacularly wrong.

But they were. And how!

MDCCCLXXIV

Our house in Guilford Street was a large one as Father had been able to purchase the neighbouring property and subsume it into our own (I was sure that the family legend of Mother reciting her dreadful stories next to the dividing wall until the neighbours left in despair was untrue, or at least mostly untrue). We therefore had a narrow alleyway either side of us, which as events that were to transpire later that year would prove rather important.

There was little sense of community in the area and the only people that we had had any sort of relationship with had been the Drummonds (no relation to a gentleman who would later feature in my own life), but they had decamped to Scotland last January. In their place we had acquired Mr. Miles Everett and his daughter Amelia, which I had initially thought a most unfair exchange. He was one of the most bigoted and unpleasant people in London Town, and that was a competition for which there were far too many entries anyway including several of my own siblings. I did not see her at first, and my luck might – should – have held out for a couple of years but alas! it did not. And I had one Mr. Walter Clopton Wingfield to thank for that.

MDCCCLXXIV

It was the end of March and I was home for Easter, which came early that year. Normally I would have stayed around the home but I knew that Mother was working on some new major literary horror and that it was dangerously close to being finished, so I took every opportunity to get out of the house. One such led me back to my old school where they were having an Open Day for prospective new parents and children, and demonstrating what the place had to offer for both. Something that intrigued me was a demonstration of some new sport called Sphairistike¹ which had been developed by the aforementioned Mr. Wingfield as a more accessible version of real or royal tennis (indeed it would later acquire the rather more manageable name of 'lawn tennis'), and it was there that I encountered the Everetts. I had not known that Mr. Everett also had a son, Morris, who was much younger than his daughter and being with them was presumably applying to my _alma mater_. The father was a heavy-set fellow in his fifties while his son had presumably taken after his mother as he was a fresh-faced blond boy who was clearly in his father's shadow. But then there was a lot of shadow to be in.

Mr. Everett clearly recognized me by his fierce scowl; I knew (because we both had servants who could have gossiped for England) that he was fiercely xenophobic, so living next door to a family with Irish origins was something he most certainly deemed beneath him. Also that he had to have had at least some sense, for had his voicing those opinions reached the ears of Mother, she would certainly have gone round and challenged him on that. And possibly even read him one of her stories! I did not see the daughter but she had to have been there and to have seen me, considering what followed.

MDCCCLXXIV

I suppose that looking back, there was some sort of irony that Miss Amelia Everett came into Moira's offices on All Fools' Day. If so I did not see the humour for many years after.

The lady was a well-presented female of about my age (she was in fact two months younger than me), and had curled red hair that hung in locks on her slender shoulders and gave her a generally pleasant appearance. It stood in her favour that she had not gone for overly expensive clothes as some people in that position were prone to do (cough, Hilton and Randall, cough). I knew now that she and Morris were in fact half-siblings and that while he was obviously their father's heir, she stood to inherit a sizeable sum from her late mother, Mr. Everett's first wife, who had rather wisely left her the money in trust so that her father could not get at it (the marriage had ended rather badly, I had been told). 

“I chanced to see you when Father took Morris to his new school last weekend”, she said, “and when I asked around I was told that you worked at this agency and can help people. I wonder if you can help me.”

She was giving me a look that was decidedly predatory, which far too many ladies did for some reason. I fought down the urge to shuffle my chair backwards.

“Tell me about your problem”, I said.

“Do you happen to know a Lord Edgar Dundas?” she asked.

My knowledge of the social scene was frankly poor (although this would be remedied during most of my career when I had befriended someone who knew everything despite hardly ever reading the society-pages of the newspapers or the scandalous magazines that he would keep in the second drawer down of his bedside cabinet). However I did know this particular gentleman as his father was in the government and my own father had spoken of him the one time. He had described the fellow as 'one of the lesser rogues down Westminster way', which I had thought a most excellent example of damning someone with faint praise.

“His father of the same name is a minor minister in Mr. Disraeli's government”, I said. “He sits in the Lords and I suppose that he wishes to have his son follow him into politics.”

_(I might add here that we had had a general election the previous month, a historic one as it had been the first to be held after secret ballots had been introduced two years back. In one of those curious twists of politics Mr. Gladstone's Liberal Party had won more votes but Mr. Disraeli's Conservatives had won more seats and had in fact achieved a small majority. Much more significant for the country and for some of my own future cases was the rise of the Irish Home Rule Party; freed from the bullying of their Protestant landlords who could previously have thrown them out of their homes for 'voting the wrong way', Irish Catholics had largely deserted the two main parties in what would eventually lead to the independence of the Irish Free State.)_

“Edgar is his eldest surviving son”, she said, “and some five years my senior. He is a very nice gentleman, handsome and rich. I wish to marry him.”

Well, that was frank!

“Does _he_ wish to marry you?” I inquired.

She sighed, and batted her eyelashes at me. I was feeling every more uncomfortable as this interview progressed, and fervently wished the woman gone.

“He does”, she said. “But there is a problem.”

I could quite easily guess as to what, or rather who, that problem was.

“Your father?” I hazarded.

She nodded.

“You see, Edgar's father married a lady from South Africa”, she said, “and the family has considerable interests over there. So does my own father but.... he utterly hates foreigners and the Boers² in particular.”

I frowned.

“I do not see that we can be much help to you”, I said. “What is it that you wish us to do, exactly?”

So she told me.

MDCCCLXXIV

“This is all going to end in tears, you know.”

I scowled at Logan, who had come round to the house on a rare visit. That meant I also had to scowl at Ajax who was as ever draped over him. Worst of all Mother thought their relationship so wonderful that she was going to write 'Jack The Lad', a sequel to 'Cracker Jack', the story she had written about the two of them and which would not be ready until after the bastards were safely away and leaving some other victim to have to suffer it. That was just wrong!

“I am being paid to pretend-date an attractive young lady and show her unpleasant father that there are worse suitors out there than the one he has objected to so far”, I said. “There are worse jobs.”

“What if she makes a play for you, though?” Logan asked. “I know her sort.”

“How?” I asked, not at all testily. “I can see that your knowledge extends rather in the opposite direction.”

“Jack extends a long way!” said a soon to be ex-brother.

I glared at him. Family!

MDCCCLXXIV

As I had arranged, Mr. Miles Everett did not find out the whole truth about who was dating his precious daughter straight away as I felt the shock of a later revelation would make things more.... well, shocking. I had two weeks of some tolerable walking out with Miss Everett before she came to Moira's offices one day looking worried.

“Father has found out about your actually having been born in Ireland”, she said fretfully.

_(I should remark here that, illogical as it seems, there was a definite line in most people's minds between 'British Irish' and 'Irish Irish'. After all, the great Duke of Wellington himself had come from an Irish family but had ended up entirely British. Mr. Everett had known as I said of our family's Irish origins but had assumed that we had been Anglicized so that was, if not acceptable, then at least tolerable. Finding that the Holmes family member dating his daughter was the one born in Ireland and worse, an ardent Hibernian (for that was what I had made sure he had learned) had come as a dreadful shock)._

“I know”, I said.

She looked at me in surprise.

“We are, remember, striving to make your father realize that Lord Edgar Dundas is not such a bad choice for you as he might have thought”, I pointed out. “He initially considered a rich and seemingly Anglicized neighbour to be more acceptable, so the shock of finding out that his potential son-in-law was far more Irish than anyone in polite society could possibly deem acceptable..... he was, I would wager, not pleased.”

“He has said that he will be sitting in the front room with the window open and his shotgun ready”, she said, “just in case you try to come up the driveway.”

“Do not worry”, I said. “I have arranged for an actor friend of mine – well, my sister's – to appear briefly at the gates disguised at me before running away.”

“I hope that you paid the fellow danger-money”, she said anxiously.

MDCCCLXXIV

Father received a pointed (threatening) letter by recorded delivery later that same day making it clear what would happen if I or anyone associated with me was to appear anywhere on his property. And to answer your obvious question, no. Father did not tell Mother about it, otherwise she would have likely stormed round there and done something horrible to Mr. Everett.

I told Watson about this in my next letter back to him – I always wrote back on Father's behalf – and he very snarkily replied in his letter that Mother might well have read some of her dreadful stories to the fellow. I did not know why I put up with the rogue at times like this, and it was doubly annoying that I had had a vaguely similar thought myself. But at least I had not gone and committed it to paper!

MDCCCLXXIV

With my having been forced to withdraw from the field this case had looked set for a successful conclusion, especially as Miss Everett had told me that her father was coming round to the idea that despite his foreign ancestry, Lord Edgar Dundas might just be considered an acceptable son-in-law given the terrible full Hibernian alternative. Things looked even better when Lord Dundas announced that he had to go to South Africa on business that summer and Mr. Everett agreed, if reluctantly, that his daughter might accompany him. 

Which was why the events of that June came as a bolt out of the blue. I received an almost incoherent telegram from Miss Everett asking me to meet her at a hotel not far from both our houses. Wondering just what had gone wrong, I headed off and met here there.

“This is dreadful!” she sobbed as we sat in her room (I knew that her father had closed up their London house and gone to Scotland for some reason, which presumably was why she had come here prior to her departure for the southern hemisphere. “Edgar..... is engaged!”

I stared at her in shock.

“To be married?” I said stupidly, as if her prospective husband (or not, apparently) might be engaged in some other way. 

She nodded.

“His father never disapproved of his wish to marry me”, she said, “but we had thought that he was at least prepared to accept it. But he is in some sort of financial difficulty and needs his son to make a rich marriage as a matter of urgency.”

“But your father is rich”, I objected. “And did not your late mother own a gold mine or some such thing?”

“Edgar's future wife owns _two_ gold mines!” she said bitterly.

Oops!

“He has betrayed me!” she said angrily. “And he actually told me that the girl in question is not that healthy and will likely not live long, so all I have to do is wait a few years! Pah!”

“That is terrible”, I agreed.

She looked me fully in the face for the first time just then – and I had a bad feeling that I knew just where this conversation was heading.

MDCCCLXXIV

I left her room some time later, having lost something that I had really not expected to lose that day. 

Oops?

MDCCCLXXIV

_Notes:_   
_1) From two Greek words which translate as 'ball-game'._   
_2) From a Dutch word for farmer, referring to the original Dutch settlers of the Cape Colony many of whom migrated north to either the South African Republic (the Transvaal) or the Orange Free State to escape British rule._

MDCCCLXXIV


	8. Careless Whispers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August 1874. One month before Sherlock will resume his studies at Oxford and actually get to speak to John for the first time – but first there is the decidedly explosive matter of the dead goldfish.

Watson and I shared rooms in three London thoroughfares over our years together; Montague Street, Cramer Street and of course most famously Baker Street. However there were two other addresses that were associated with one or other of us. For a brief period in 'Eighty-Three Watson lived in Dorset Street while I was unaware of the disaster that that thoroughfare was to bring into our lives. And before them all was my first place of my own in Queen Square, just south of Guilford Street. My move there was precipitated by the events that I am about to describe, which also explain why our old house had to be virtually demolished before being rebuilt. Which in turn can be explained in one short but deadly word.

_Mother!_

MDCCCLXXIV

It was late August, and I had just about recovered from the frankly sordid events that had transpired the previous month in a London hotel room. I had never really thought about..... That while growing up, feeling that all my energies would have to be diverted to my career and that my character was such that I would certainly never have a wife. Now.... ugh!

There was however some news that had helped to take my mind off such things. Watson's mother had passed that summer and Father had helped with the sale of their cottage so that young Stephen Watson could head off to Edinburgh University where he would train to be a lawyer, while Watson himself would come to London and continue his studies at St. Bartholomew's. Even better, he was going to visit our mutual friend and my room-mate Stamford (who had not improved with time; he was still far too snarky and still played those damn bagpipes!) in Oxford, so I would get to see my friend for three weeks. Unfortunately he would as I had expected be living in student accommodation for the first two years in London, but when he moved to the field-work part of his degree in 'Seventy-Six he would have to find a place of his own. Which was where I would come in.

I was therefore in the curious position of looking for two different types of accommodation, either one for me alone and for just for a couple of years, or a longer-term one into which I could have Watson move. Which I knew would raise some eyebrows as the place would have to be relatively cheap so that he could afford it. But only a few people knew just how strong my financial position now was after my inheritance from Uncle Edwy; most thought that I would only be getting one-thirteenth of the family wealth some day.

Logan, who I am rapidly going off, just had to remark that Uncle Edwy had left him something much bigger. Whatever else they may discover I seriously doubt that scientists will ever find a cure for Debating Society 'humour'!

MDCCCLXXIV

I suppose that some people might say that the way events transpired was partly my fault. But to be fair I merely sought to avoid trouble, directing it onto those more deserving (i.e. someone other than me).

My mother was a formidable lady, in build as well as for her dreadful stories. Worse for those who did not know her, one never quite knew how she would react to stupid things done by those around her. Sometimes she would vent immediately, but in other cases she would merely make notes of a person's errors and bide her time. Hence any long period in which she did not find reason to let rip at the likes of Hilton, Randall, Guilford or Evelith was cause for concern, for rather like the mighty volcano merely rumbling rather than erupting it meant that when things did happen they happened, as my sister Anna called it, 'bigly'.

It was Anna who defined the twelve different levels of reaction that Mother comes out with, ranging from the relatively mild Level One (Mildly Irritated; only a low probability of time in hospital) to the hitherto unseen Level Twelve (Apocalyptic; major damage to life and limb). The worst I had seen thus far was a Level Eleven when Mother had been Incandescent that time the family had gone to the seaside – Brixham in Devonshire, if I remember correctly – and Randall had played a trick on me while I was changing in a beach-hut which had led to my leg getting broken.

He was out of hospital within two months. And Father had very generously paid for all six beach-huts to be rebuilt, although Mother had of course then insisted that the money be taken out of the pest's allowance. 

Some of us did wonder whether Anna was mistaken in their being a Level Twelve especially after seeing the matchwood remains of those huts – a passing tornado could not have done a more effective job – but events that summer were to prove my sister all too right.

MDCCCLXXIV

There was a small incident just after I returned for the summer holidays which, although trivial, I am going to mention as it was somewhat relevant to the disaster than unfolded not long after. There was a pillar-box just outside our front-door which as was custom at the time was painted in what I had always thought to have been a rather odd 'bronze-green' livery, almost as if they were trying to hide the things. Back then pillar-boxes were still quite rare; they had not been introduced into London until 'Fifty-Nine. And recently the General Post Office had decided to make them more obvious by opting for a striking bright red livery.

Which was where the pestilential Guilford came in. My immediate elder brother, some two years my senior physically but mentally many years inferior, was always playing jokes and shortly after the General Post Office had repainted the box outside our house he had repainted it so that it had red and white horizontal stripes. Mother had been Mildly Irritated as she Did Not Like It, and of course the servants (who disliked my brother intensely for all the extra work his pranks gave them) told her what he had done. Had he had any sense he would have accepted his punishment but he knew that Mother was heading off to visit someone in Scotland shortly and had managed to avoid her until she was gone.

This was to prove a most painful error on his part. And on someone else's.

MDCCCLXXIV

One of Mother's less alarming hobbies was the keeping of fish, and she had a particular preference for those strange black goldfish (surely if one if going to go to all the trouble of keeping the things, why not at least have some colour?). Her aforementioned trip was to Scotland in order to see a cousin of hers, one Miss Elspeth MacDonnell who I would one day encounter myself and to my great discomfiture. Also someone who apparently liked Mother's stories, which I found hard to believe but would turn out to be true.

I suppose that it really did take all sorts to make a world.

With Mother gone it fell to me to feed her beloved fish but fortunately I am good at remembering things like that, or at least when I have the right motivation (outright terror, in this case!). At first all seemed to be going well enough, but by the day before Mother's return it was clear that the creatures were not doing well. 

“I doubt that that one is trying to get a sun-tan!” Moira said shortly when I told her. “I think that I can guess what is wrong with them; I know a fellow who lives not far away and he can confirm it.”

I was just glad to be able to get an expert in, especially given the circumstances. Sure enough the rather unfortunately named Mr. Joseph Fish arrived barely an hour later. He was in his late thirties, short and bespectacled, but he definitely seemed to know what he was talking about as he quickly spotted the problem.

“These poor creatures have been overfed!” he said, looking accusingly at me.

I was suspicious at once. I knew that Mother was very careful about such things and she had left me explicit instructions about how much food the creatures were to have, which I had followed to the letter. She too had stressed the overfeeding thing and I had had to measure out a 'meal' in front of her to make sure that I knew what I was doing.

“Can you be sure?” I asked.

“Unfortunately it is in their nature that fish will gorge themselves when the food is there”, he said. “There are a few pieces and flakes left over at the bottom of the tank, which means that they must have been fed at least several times what they needed; they would never leave food otherwise. Little wonder the poor things have been doing so badly.”

“Can anything be done?” I asked.

He nodded and pulled a small tube out of his pocket.

“Disgusting at it is, the only real cure is the same as that with humans”, he said. “Make them throw up the excess food. This is designed to look like normal food but will make them vomit and thus clear out their systems. Fortunately I see the owner has a top-class filter system so the water will be automatically cleaned. I suppose that they are your father's?”

“They are actually my mother's”, I said abstractedly.

He looked around in horror, presumably thinking that said parent might suddenly materialize up through a trap-door (not impossible with Mother; more than one sibling had found that she could and did appear where she was least expected, and nearly always armed!).

“And I know in the trade how much she likes her pets”, he said, looking suddenly very pale and visibly shaking. “I am very glad that I live over in the Minories!”

MDCCCLXXIV

I spent the rest of the day talking to the servants. Fortunately I was well-liked around the house and even more fortunately certain other people were not, especially after the pillar-box incident. It was not long before I found three of them who had overheard Randall and Guilford either plotting the deed or boasting about it afterwards, especially in that they were sure that the (rightly) favoured youngest son would get the blame.

Right!

MDCCCLXXIV

“My Sherry-werry-werry-werry-werry!”

As Mother tried to smother me into oblivion I wondered again if I had ended up as tall as I was because she had 'squeezed me out' over the years. Once I could breathe again I sat down, intending to tell her what had happened, but she had something of her own to tell me so of course got in first.

“I have received some most excellent news, dear”, she said. “I asked that nice Mr. Brighton, our agent, to alert me if any suitable properties in the areas were available, and while I was in Scotland he telegraphed me that indeed one was. Is that not wonderful?”

“Suitable for what, Mother?” I asked, puzzled.

“Well, for you, dear!” she beamed. “There is a small place in Queen Square that is just right for a single gentleman starting out on his life. Of course it will not be enough once you are with, ahem, that certain special someone.....”

I shuddered beneath that look. I had not forgotten my last birthday when part of her present had been a framed Wedding Order Of Service, with my name written in but the bride's left blank. Subtlety was not a concept that my mother had ever been even remotely acquainted with.

“But it will be fine for now. And it is yours for the asking.”

Belatedly I spotted it. Queen Square. The Queen Square just over the back of Guilford Street. The Queen Square which could likely be seen from this house. Hmm.

“Did anything happen while I was away, Sherry-werry?” she asked brightly.

Ah. Here went nothing.

“I am afraid that it did, Mother”, I said. “One of your fish died, and nearly all the others were sick. But I have been assured that they will all recover.”

I do not know how, but somehow her smile both stayed in place yet seemed to sidle away and race out of the door like the hounds of Hell were after it. I so badly wanted to follow it.

“What happened, pray?”

Her voice for some reason made me thing of what a nice place Timbuctoo was at this time of year. And also that the room was suddenly rather cold. I was sure that the fire was starting to flicker a little lower....

“Randall and Guilford decided to play a joke on me”, I said, “and deliberately overfed your poor fish such that one died. Three of the servants overheard them; they have all given me statements.”

She nodded. The ticking of the clock seemed unnaturally loud, I thought.

“You have of course rewarded and reassured the servants?” she asked, her voice still alarmingly even. I was reminded of the horrible silence before the massive eruption of the volcano, which only meant that said eruption was going to be even worse than feared.

“Yes, Mother.”

“Send Randall and Guilford to me in five minutes' time, dear”, she said. “Then you might wish to take a walk. Also tell dear Eddie that he should visit his club. Soon would be a good time.”

“Yes, Mother.

I kissed her dutifully and managed to restrict myself to walking to the door outside which I found Jameson. I asked him to fetch my brothers then hurried over to father's study. Our butler really should have refrained from that finger across the throat like that, but I was too intent on making my own escape to worry about such fripperies just now.

MDCCCLXXIV

We had to move out that evening; they really do not make stone pillars like they used to. Well, all of us except for Randall and Guilford, who were to enjoy hospital-food for pretty much the rest of that year (sniff, how sad). Mother had indeed gone Apocalyptic over this and several previous infractions by the duo, neither of whom would not be causing me any more annoyance for a while. 

_Mainly because to do so would have involved having to move limbs!_

Fortunately Father had a friend with a house in the street which he was not currently using, so we moved in there while our original house was totally rebuilt (it took nearly a year!). I also found the time to go round and see Mrs. Charlotte Leadbetter who owned the property Mother had told me about in Queen Square (less than five minutes' walk from either of our houses, I noted!) but it was a pleasant if small place that would suit me well for the next couple of years. Definitely only large enough for one gentleman which was a pity given the location. but then this was a matter of urgency. Because whenever Mother got upset she wrote even more than usual, and our temporary accommodation was so small that it would have been more difficult to avoid her.

As it turned out I was fortunate in that, since Father recommended that Guilford and Randall might as well make themselves useful while they were laid up so they could edit some of Mother's horr.... writings for her. That would definitely help take their minds off their sufferings – _or possibly drive them insane!_

They do say that into every life a little rain must fall. Just provided that it was not mine!

MDCCCLXXIV


End file.
